's coping with their son 's death . `` When you start talking about Michael , she starts crying . '' By many accounts , Katherine Jackson , 79 , shared a special bond with her second-youngest son . In a 1993 interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey , Michael Jackson spoke glowingly of the matriarch . `` My mother 's wonderful , '' he said . `` To me , she 's perfection . '' According to a biography posted by A&E Networks , Katherine Jackson was born Kattie B. Screws in 1930 in Barbour County , Alabama . Her family reportedly relocated to East Chicago , Indiana , when she was 4 , and her name was changed to Katherine Esther Scruse . A childhood bout with polio left her with a permanent limp . She was a teenager when she met Joe Jackson , an aspiring musician and a boxer whose first marriage dissolved . Katherine said it was love at first sight . `` I just had a feeling that he was going to be my husband , '' Katherine Jackson said in an interview shot last year by Xonger Global Entertainment Networks for a
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Michael Jackson 's upbringing was shaped by two very different parents . An image of Michael Jackson and his parents was on the big screen during his funeral in Los Angeles . His mother , Katherine Jackson , has been portrayed by her children as the loving glue that bonded the family together , while her husband , Joe , was the harsh disciplinarian whose iron hand not only shaped one of the most successful musical families in the world , but also elicited enough fear in his superstar son that it sometimes made him ill . Now the couple of 60 years stands at the center of a custody drama surrounding their grandchildren . Michael Jackson 's will , filed in 2002 , designated his mother as caregiver for Prince Michael , 12 , Paris , 11 , and `` Blanket , '' 7 . It is the latest installment in the many trials that have tested the Jackson family , not least of which has been the unexpected loss of its most famous member . '' -LSB- Katherine 's -RSB- taking it real hard , '' Joe Jackson told ABC News about his wife