Where the Blue Goose Went, Love Followed: The Legacy of Miss Marilyn Brock
- ksmith0454
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Some of our heroes never made it to a headline, but they kept this place alive one mile, one bridge, one song at a time.
I’m just an ordinary Appalachian girl who sees Jesus most in people like Miss Marilyn. Not in stained glass or stages, but in a woman with muddy tires and tired feet, still finding the strength to knock on one more door, sing one more song, sit with one more neighbor so they don’t feel alone.
Miss Marilyn Brock rolled into Red Bird in 1975 and spent 34 years doing what most folks today couldn’t imagine—driving the old “Blue Goose” jeep across swinging bridges and muddy trails to reach homebound neighbors who had no one else. She packed water, her nursing bag, and a whole lot of Jesus and mountain music with her.
Marilyn spent her life pouring out the love of Jesus on this mountain and far beyond it. A longtime Red Bird missionary nurse and musician, she carried hope up every holler she entered, and I’m grateful to call her family.
She married my great-great uncle, so she was at every church service and family gathering—always there, always smiling, like sunshine in the form of a human being.
You could feel her warmth, her light, from miles away.
After Marilyn fell in love with an Appalachian man named Baxter, she settled here in these mountains and rooted her life deep in this community.
She became a mother twice over—a daughter by birth, and while on a missionary trip, she met a little boy she loved so much she raised him as her own.
In their own ways, both of her children carry her gifts: the artistry, the kindness, and that same gentle, loving spirit that always seems to find the person who needs it most.
Marilyn wasn’t just a gifted nurse. She is a songwriter, artist and a worship leader in the truest, simplest way.
After she retired, Marilyn returned to the preschool weekly with her autoharp, singing about Daniel in the lions' den and the Bible lesson being taught. Each week, she wrote a new song for the children, using music to teach the Bible lessons.
If you were fortunate to receive one of her handmade cards, you can recognize her talent.
Ask anybody who really knows Miss Marilyn, and you’ll hear the same thing over and over: she just loves people.
Not in a loud, showy way, but in those steady, everyday moments that stack up into a lifetime. Folks didn’t just respect her as "the nurse from Red Bird."
They adored her for her kind spirit, her listening ear, and the way she made every single person feel like they were worth the time.
In this special video, Marilyn talks about home health as a ministry
Her ministry didn’t clock out at the end of a shift.
Marilyn checked on patients after hours, remembered grandbabies’ names, sat and visited a little longer than she had to. She showed up at church, at family gatherings, at school events with that same gentle presence—smiling, encouraging, humming a song, making sure nobody felt forgotten.
That’s the kind of legacy I want our kids and grandkids to know they’re standing on.
It’s the work of hands like Marilyn’s—people who believed loving your neighbor meant actually knowing them, checking on them, and making them feel seen.
If that’s our roots, then we’ve got a responsibility too. We may not drive the Blue Goose or carry an autoharp and a nursing bag, but we can knock on a door, send a message, offer a ride, sit and listen. Future generations deserve to know where they come from—and to see us living out that same kind of love right now.
Thank you, Marilyn. You are so loved and you are so cherished.
If Marilyn could spend her whole life checking on neighbors, making them smile, and making them feel loved and seen, what excuse do the rest of us have?
We can’t all drive the Blue Goose, but we can all look around and love the people right in front of us.
-Kayla Smith
RBM Media & Gifts Specialist
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