But when she was asked about the Oct. 6 Roy Rogers robbery during which she was almost killed, she quickly stuck up her crooked index finger and said, ''That to them, that to them," in an effort at an obscene gesture, her eyes widening behind the large, thick bifocals that seem to cover her small face.
"I want to punch who did this, punch them back."
Peaceman was beaten by an employee-turned-robber at the fast-food restaurant at Roosevelt Boulevard and Welsh Road, while another man beat and stabbed the manager to death. The alleged robbers - Keith Fobbs, 20, and Don ''Ike" Jones, 17 - were extradited back to Philadelphia after they were found in a North Carolina jail charged with another crime.
Peaceman was beaten so badly that her fractured skull pressed into her brain. Afterward, she lay in a coma for two weeks. And when she woke up, she couldn't sit, eat, walk or talk.
That was six months ago. Peaceman had been at the Drucker Brain Injury Center at Moss Rehabilitation Hospital until she was discharged last week.
"See, I got hurt," she said as she pointed a crooked finger to a thin red scar that was barely covered by the fuzzy dark brown hair that's starting to grow back on her head. The scar wrapped around the top of her skull to the base of her head. "I got hit here, and when I talk it comes out like blah, blah, blah."
There is no doubt that Peaceman is feeling pretty good. Her progress, her doctor says, is remarkable.
"She's been a joy," said speech therapist Randi McAlpine. "She never felt sorry for herself, never felt like 'poor me.' Instead she would go to patients, who had severe injuries, and kiss them and rub their back."
Last Wednesday, Peaceman went to her new home, Beechwood Institute, a residential facility in Bucks County.
"Recovery over head injuries takes years," said her doctor, Jeanne Pelensky. "But she's motivated and wants to do well."
Peaceman's younger sister, Fern Fishman, said Peaceman was a bookkeeper before she was laid off three years ago and took the job at Roy Rogers, where she was in charge of customer service. Peaceman said it was a job she loved.
Fishman said her sister, who is single, took over taking care of their 82- year-old mother when Fishman married two years ago. She said it hasn't been easy for the family to cope with what Peaceman has gone through.
"The woman who found Marline placed her blood-drenched head on a tray of rolls," Fishman said as she held her sister's hand. "Her two fingers on her hand are crooked because they are fractured. She tried to stop the blows."
Fishman said she found it hard to cope after her sister was hurt.
"It was like she was saying 'Damn you, I'm not going to die,' " Fishman said. "I couldn't sleep knowing the kind of pain she was in, but when she started to get better, I felt better. What happened to her was senseless and brutal."
Peaceman, whose vison is severely impaired because of the beating, said her sight is what she misses most.
"I'd love to see everything the way I did before I got hit," she said. ''Sometimes I miss things."
