Brenda Joan Butler Kirby, age 74, passed peacefully on Sept. 3, 2016, from complications due to pneumonia.

She had been a resident of Lake Martin for the last 20 years. Brenda was born in Decatur to Paul Butler and Ethel Muzzey. After spending her early childhood in rural Morgan County, she moved with her family to Tallapoosa County where she attended and graduated Reeltown High School in 1961. In 1965, she met and married Bill W. Kirby, Jr., and they resided in Reeltown while Brenda worked to help Bill finish his degree at Auburn University.

Upon his graduation the family moved to Rome Georgia, then Greenville, before finally making their home in Selma for 14 years until they moved to their dream home on Lake Martin in 1986.  Brenda was a legal secretary for most of her career, working for law firms in each of the cities where she lived and retiring from the Montgomery office of Balch & Bingham.

She was a beautiful, intelligent woman with many talents. Brenda was a skilled seamstress, an accomplished cook, and a lover of books and movies with an encyclopedic memory of everything she ever read or watched. She loved a good joke, the more risqué the better, and there was no craft or home project she wouldn’t take on.  The depth of her love for the Auburn Tigers only slightly exceeded the level of her dislike of the Crimson Tide.

She was preceded in death by her father and mother, adoring stepfather Eldridge H. Jackson, mother-in-law Lula (Plant) Kirby, sisters Carol (Butler) Holland, Martha (Butler) Bowlin, and Margaret (Butler) Bell.

She is survived by her loving husband of 50 years Bill W. Kirby, Jr.; son, Mark (Ann) Kirby of Atlanta; daughter, Paula (Marshall) Norrell of Opelika and brother, Paul Kyle (Pallie) Butler of Auburn, along with the beautiful grandchildren of whom she was so proud:  Kyle Kirby, Drew Kirby, Laura Kirby, Walker Norrell, Kirby Norrell, Erik Norrell and Aaron Norrell.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Cemetery Committee of New Friendship Baptist Church, 1145 Friendship Road, Somerville, AL 35670.

The family will receive friends and relatives on Saturday, Sept. 10 at the Jeffcoat Funeral Home, 255 Friendship Road, Tallassee, AL 36078 beginning at noon, followed by a memorial service to celebrate her life at 1 p.m. in the Jeffcoat Chapel with family friend Benjamin C. Nichols presiding.

Online condolences are available at:  www.jeffcoatfuneralhome.com.