It gave me great joy to be able to write a touching and well-received farewell piece about Springfield police officer Brenda Thompson, who died unexpectedly in April 2006.

City police lose one of their best-known / Death ends Brenda Thompson’s long career
April 6, 2006

Springfield police officer Brenda Thompson, a highly regarded member of the force for 27 years, died late Tuesday at St. John’s Hospital after a series of medical complications, friends and family members said.

Thompson, who turned 50 last month, had the highest seniority of any officer in the Springfield Police Department, based on the number of years she worked there.

She joined the force in February 1979 and worked as: a patrol officer; a Drug Awareness and Resistance Education, or DARE officer; Crime Stoppers coordinator from 1994 to 1999; crime prevention officer; and organizer of the department’s Neighborhood Watch and Beat Cop programs. She also worked in the narcotics section, was a field training officer and was a member of the department’s honor guard.

“She was kind of the matriarch of our department. What a wonderful woman,” said Sgt. Pat Ross, who knew Thompson for years.

“You can’t explain or put into words how much an individual like Brenda is going to be missed. I was asked how do you replace a Brenda Thompson. Well, you don’t. She was probably the most widely liked person down here. She just had a heart of gold. She was an outstanding officer and had inside of her all the things that keep us human.”

Thompson had been hospitalized for the past 21/2 weeks. She apparently developed some kind of blood disease around Christmas Eve, her life partner Laine Tadlock said, and a surgeon removed her spleen March 16. After that, she developed a staph infection and respiratory problems before going into full cardiac arrest March 20, Tadlock said. Thompson had been in a coma ever since.

“She was bigger than life. Loved everybody,” Tadlock said through tears. “Never had a bad day. Never met a stranger. Would give you the shirt off her back and be happy to do it and ask you if you needed anything else. She didn’t care whether you had a dime in your pocket or a million dollars, she treated you all the same.”

Tadlock, who was with Thompson for 16 years, said she was a fun, vibrant person who loved her family and her job and would spontaneously burst into song and dance.

“Even when she was sick and on the stretcher going to surgery. She was so looking forward to having her spleen out. She was on the stretcher and going, ‘Woo-hoo! Let’s get this over with so I can get on with my life,’” Tadlock recalled.

“She came out of surgery, and while in recovery, there was a guy next to her who was giving the nurses fits and trying to climb out of the bed. She was lying there and said, ‘Don’t make me come over there,’ and telling the nurses, ‘I’ll be right there to help you.’

“When I was waiting for her in her room when she came back from recovery, you could hear her in the hallway all the way back to her room talking and carrying on.”

Thompson was eligible for retirement but loved her job so much she wanted to stay on at least three more years. She always had a tale to tell about work.

“She’d come home and tell stories about stuff. She was going to write a book. She even had the title – ‘A Day in Blue.’ It was going to be all of her stories about being on the police force,” Tadlock said.

Kevin Keen, a retired Springfield police sergeant who was Thompson’s supervisor in the crime prevention unit, said she was instrumental in improving the Neighborhood Watch program and getting more residents involved in it.

“Anybody who knew Brenda knew of her outgoing personality. She had a bubbly attitude and could make anybody smile on their worst day. Armed with that enthusiasm, she was able to get anybody who might not want to be involved in the program interested. Many parts of town that didn’t have it before now have it because of her enthusiasm,” he said.

Thompson, who lived in a log home on six acres, loved animals and gardening and recently had begun dabbling in welding art. She also had the ability to pick up nearly any musical instrument – including the piano, banjo, violin, guitar and dulcimer – and play it by ear. She was adept at construction and carpentry work and loved children.

“She was a big kid herself,” Tadlock said.

Thompson donated her kidneys and pancreas, and her family requested that her kidneys to go children if possible.

Thompson’s friends are invited to a remembrance reception from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday at Staab-Polk Funeral Home in Chatham. Her wishes were for a gathering for family and friends to look at photographs, share their favorite or “most annoying” memories of her and talk about all the fun they all had, Tadlock said.

In lieu of flowers, her family is requesting that donations be made to the Animal Protective League because her cat, Wally, was adopted from there and because she loved all animals.

“Wally would sleep right next to her every night with his head on her hand, and they’d have breakfast every morning together before she left for work,” Tadlock said.

“I’m going to miss her presence. She often said that people would talk to her about having everlasting life. She would say, ‘But I have heaven on earth, heaven is right here.’”