Kathryn joined the world on May 23, 1964, and was immediately dressed in a yellow outfit. It became her favorite color. She had an irrepressible spirit through childhood. She liked practicing cartwheels in the yard, joining in Girl Scout activities, singing, dancing, playing piano and guitar, and learning Spanish. In high school she found her voice and joined the Madrigal Singers where she made life-long friends. She attended as many Madrigal reunions as she could to reconnect and sing along.
She also found a love of acting in high school, beginning with the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She participated in many summer productions of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas with the Fairfield County Student Operetta Workshop. This love of theater continued through her life where she supported friends and family in local productions as well as Broadway. She also enjoyed a variety of comedic shows – she loved to laugh.
Katy was a valued member of the Wilton Singers in Wilton, CT, a regional chorus of adult singers. During their annual Elizabethan Dinner, Katy was always cast as the “flower wench” selling flowers and entertaining patrons.
At one point, she was offered the opportunity to participate in the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade as a clown, and she jumped at the chance. Thus started her love of wearing red noses.
Katy was also kind of competitive. There wasn’t a Scrabble or Monopoly board she couldn’t conquer. And don’t get her started on games that involved song or hymn lyrics. You just weren’t going to win that one. As a liturgical music minister for several churches and a life-long singer, she knew a lot of lyrics.
As a singer, Katy really enjoyed creating harmonies. She would even sing the harmony part when sitting with the rest of the congregation in church. It would sometimes throw off the people sitting nearby, but that was Katy.
If you knew Katy, you knew she faced challenges head-on and with great humor. Through her own health challenges, she became knowledgeable enough to be the person other family members leaned on when they had health issues. When Katy had a particular challenge she needed help with, her friends rallied around her and provided the additional assistance she needed. Her family is profoundly grateful for all the support Katy received.
With her rather irreverent sense of humor, Katy approached her second and third cancers a little differently. With her second cancer, a lot of information (perhaps a bit too much information) was put out on Facebook and the red nose became a prominent feature. Katy was a big fan of Red Nose Day. With her third cancer and a double mastectomy looming, she ran a contest challenging people to guess how much weight was going to be removed from her chest. She actually awarded a “booby prize” for the closest guess.
Unfortunately, Katy’s last health battle was not conquerable. She fought as best she could, but she got the triple word score, took her Scrabble tiles and left without passing Go or collecting $200.
In lieu of flowers, to honor Katy please consider donating to Comic Relief US, the sponsors of Red Nose Day, at www.comicrelief.org/red-nose-day, or contributing to the Wilton Singers scholarship fund by visit their website at www.wiltonsingers.org.
