Welcome to 90 Days Of Summer! What’s your name and what fills your time?
Brenda Batteh Brown… I was born to Palestinian immigrants in Jacksonville and I was raised in the St. Nicholas area. My dad came here in 1948 from Ramallah, Palestine. My mother made her way to New York around 1950. They knew each other from Ramallah. They were married in 1955. I met my husband, Kevin Brown, my first year teaching (1984-85) at Fletcher High School. We were married a year later and I moved to the beach. I taught at Fletcher for 35 years and I loved every minute of it. Both of our children, Jamilah and Houston, graduated from there and my husband and I now offer a scholarship in honor of my parents, Fuad Salem and Mary F. Batteh.
I am a grandmother to three munchkins, Jordyn Leila, Joselyn Sawyer, and Jay Houston McCann. They live two houses down from us so a lot of my days are filled with them.
I am a parish coordinator for a women’s bible study, Walking with Purpose, at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Jacksonville Beach. Between my grandchildren, my bible study group, church, reading, exercising, and traveling, I stay pretty busy.
Anything special going on for this summer?
We (my husband, son, and I) just got back from Lima, Peru and Galapagos Islands… a bucket list item for both of my boys and it was an amazing trip. I will be doing a girls’ trip to New York with my daughter, her cousins, and my two sisters-in law in July and then Brown and I are headed to Ireland for the FSU-Ga Tech game.
Any hobbies or interests worth telling us about?
One thing that makes me somewhat unique is my culture. I love the traditions of the Palestinian culture, the music, the dances, and I love Palestinian food… hummus, tabouli, rolled grape leaves (I have a vine in my back yard), stuffed squash, meat pies, spinach pies,… the list goes on and on. I am so grateful that Brown embraced it when we got married and that both of our children embraced it too. I can talk about my culture all day, every day! My only goal is to be a better person than I was yesterday and to serve our Lord daily.
Anything else that you would like to tell the community?
Truly, the best part of living here are the people. Here at the beach, it’s generational… in my 35 years of teaching at Fletcher, I saw three generations of the same family walk the halls. We are a community like no other. I don’t think you get that anywhere else anymore. I absolutely love running into former students around the beach… at Publix, Ace Hardware, Sliders,… I just love it.
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Mike is a native First Coaster and was a leading figure in surfing and skateboarding for most of his life. After promoting music for many years on the local music scene, Mike now brings a unique perspective to FirstCoast.Life as a contributing writer.
