Stuart Redman's mother

Stuart Redman's mother is a minor character who appears only in flashback in Chapter 1 of the Complete and Uncut Edition of The Stand by Stephen King. She was married to a dentist but widowed in the 1950s and left with three children - Stu (who was 7), Bryce (4) and Dev (2). She worked as a waitress at the Red Ball Truck Stop just outside Arnette, Texas. When Stu was about 10 to 12, he lied about his age to get a hard labor job working at stockyards in nearby Braintree. Upon learning this, she was heartbroken, but she did not tell him to stop, because they needed the money. Around that time, Dev died of pneumonia. Stu discovered football in high school, and she encouraged this, seeing it as his ticket out of Arnette, but when she died of uterine cancer just before he graduated, it ended his and her dream.

She is likely based at least in part on Nellie Ruth King, the author's mother.