Children Get Revenge On 80-Year-Old Mother In Bitter Obituary

AVON LAKE, OH — Not many obituaries end with "this world is a better place without her," but that's evidently how an Avon Lake man and his sister felt about Kathleen Dehmlow now that she's passed away.

The 80-year-old mother of two died in Minnesota on May 31 and according to her obituary in the Redwood Falls Gazette, "she will now face judgement" for these and other sins:

"In 1962 she became pregnant by her husband's brother Lyle Dehmlow and moved to California. She abandoned her children, Gina and Jay who were then raised by her parents in Clements, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schunk."

Jay now lives in Avon Lake. He changed his last name to Dehmalo to distance himself from his mother, the Daily Mail reported. "You can't believe the dysfunction of the family,' said Dehmalo, in an exclusive interview with the paper. 'They'll never know what we went through but it helped us [to write this]. We wanted to finally get the last word."

He said that the anguish he and his sister went through was indescribable. The trauma was so intense that he said if their early life was turned into a film, no one would believe it.

After the obituary garnered national headlines, Dehmalo said he has received calls from friends who assumed his mother was already dead. One even quipped that he thought Kathleen had died "in a car crash or something."

After receiving international media coverage, the Redwood Falls Gazette pulled the obituary from its website Tuesday. Read the printed version below:

Many applauded the obituary and felt Dehmlow deserved the scathing "tribute," while others said it was written in poor taste. Some criticized the small-town newspaper for even publishing it.

Dehmlow isn't the first to be excoriated in her own obituary. An obituary from 2017 written by a man's daughter describes his life as one of reckless behavior, physical and mental abuse, womanizing and pain.

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