Thank you for coming.  I want to tell a little about Katie and her life that you may not know.
     She was born in Chatham County, the youngest of six children.  The family had a small tobacco farm on which they raised a cash crop, and it was a family project.  The entire family would sleep on bunks in the tobacco barn in order to tend to a fire, which was critical to curing the tobacco.  An onerous task that the kids had to do was to pick double-ugly tobacco worms off the tobacco leaves.
     When Katie was small, she starred in a story that the family liked to retell.  Her mother sent her from the tobacco barn to the farm house to get a particular pot.  Katie found the pot, put it on her head, couldn't get it off, and exited the house screaming.  Fortunately, her family removed it with no trouble.
     The family moved to Durham, and after graduating from Durham High School and Croft Business School, Katie worked for doctors.  She was a secretary for two doctors in Durham.  After we relocated to Ohio, she worked for a surgeon in Akron.  Later, she was a bookkeeper for a team of family doctors in Columbus, and then a bookkeeping supervisor for a group of radiologists in Columbus.  Katie did her part for our family in every way.
     Many of you know how easy Katie was to like.  I would like to describe her fully, but it might require using every complimentary word in the English language.  So I will mention only a few characteristics.
     Katie was a very sweet person.  She was genuine, considerate, compassionate, intelligent, friendly, loving, and much loved.   She was delighted to be among friends, as evidenced by her memberships in a senior bridge club, the Quail Hollow Senior Club, the Third Agers Club, the Opti-Mrs. Club, and Millbrook United Methodist Church.  She enjoyed dining out, family gatherings, music, and sports.  She knew the words and the tunes to many hymns and liked to chime in when she heard them.
     She had an immense amount of courage.  In recent months, she had critically low blood sugars, several infections, a virus, and three bouts of aspirant pneumonia.  Through all of this, she complained very little.
     To mention what was probably Katie's major achievement, she mothered our three children and raised them to become good, law-abiding, productive citizens.  Her genes live on in our two remaining children, our five grandchildren, and our six great-grandchildren.
     My description of Katie has been inadequate, but she enriched the lives of all who knew her.  She was a wonderful wife, mother, and friend.  All of my memories are good.  I was a lucky man to be married to her for sixty-one years  (over 22,000 days), and I realize that now more than ever.
     I prayed hard and often for a miracle for Katie, but it was not to be.
     Sweet Katie is gone, but she will live in my heart as long as I live.  May she live in the house of the Lord forever.

My first true memories of Mom come from when I was four or five years old.  I found out my Mom had superpowers.  Our house was laid out so the kitchen led into the living room, and the couch was around the corner in the room.  One evening while I knew Mom was at the kitchen sink washing dishes and couldn't  see me, I decided that would be the ideal time to jump on the couch, which was forbidden.  I had only bounced two or three times when my Mom's voice said, “Jan, stop jumping on that couch!”  I stopped, then looked around the corner to see my Mom still at the sink.  It was years later that she told me that she could see my every move reflected in the plate glass of the living room window, but I was convinced she was Superwoman!
 My Mom was able to be a stay-at-home Mom for many years, and her one break in the day came during our nap time as she watched her favorite and only soap opera – As the World Turns.  She knew how to make days special for us.  I can recall many a time when she loaded a picnic basket, grabbed a quilt, and we were off to a park  to play Frisbee, eat, and chat with friends and relatives.  I remember her in the kitchen chopping carrots and apples and gathering bread and crackers to take with us to the zoo to feed the animals, back in the day when we were allowed to do that.  And she always had lunch ready for us when we came home each day in elementary school – soup or sandwich and chips, a pickle with the juice that would run across our piece of wax paper that substituted for a plate, a piece of fruit, and a cookie.
 Mom always provided us with books.  We walked to the library or bookmobile together, and she and Dad enrolled me in two book clubs – Weekly Reader and Nancy Drew.  I still have some of those books to this day.  She also provided us with other opportunities such as Camp Fire Girls, summer camps, piano lessons, swim lessons.  Yes, Mom would walk with us nearly two miles to the pool so we could have lessons and then swim for fun, even though she never learned to swim herself and didn't get in the water.  Truly an act of love.  But there were other things where she did join in.  Four-square, croquet, bowling, HORSE on the basketball court.
 Mom was the “chief cook and bottle washer” until she returned to work full-time when I was in eighth grade.  She ran the household well, fixing great meals, keeping it clean (or supervising us as we helped), and disciplining us when needed.  I can remember standing in the corner, being sent to my room, and getting paddlings from her.  There was never a “wait until your father gets home” with her.
 Even though Mom had an incredible memory for events and dates, she also was a person who made lists.  She loved to keep track of things, which is a trait that helped make her such a good secretary and bookkeeper in the work force.  Every Saturday and every day in the summer, there was the list of chores for each of us kids.  She had lists of items to pack for trips.  One annoying thing was that she could write in shorthand, which she had learned in business school.  So some of the lists, most notably Christmas gift lists, were written in shorthand.  We never could decode them.
 Mom enjoyed music.  We bought a new Christmas album every year, then she'd put a stack of albums on  the record player, and we sang to all the carols.  She also liked Ed Ames, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, and others.  When we traveled from Columbus to Akron, Ohio, we would often sing in the car as a family – anything from Yankee Doodle to The Battle Hymn of the Republic – then finish up with Over the River and Through the Woods as we approached my grandparents' house.
 Mom was a generous person.  I do not know how many Operation Christmas Child boxes she has filled over the years for children around the world who have nothing.  She has filled numerous stockings for the elderly and shut-in folks.  She and Dad have cheerfully given to many causes over the years, from Veterans, to the blind, to the SmileTrain that fixes cleft palates, to Salvation Army, to the church,  to the United Way, to many others.  There is probably a stack of donation requests four inches high sitting at their house right now, and Mom and Dad would consider each one.
 Perhaps the most notable thing about Mom was that she was a “people person.”  She loved visiting with friends and relatives, and she could talk with them for hours.  I can see her in my mind's eye at the fence, talking to our neighbors.  As a youngster, I thought she would never leave church after a service.  Even at the nursing home, several of the nurses and aides grew attached to her and the stories she could tell.
 Each of us is given only one Mother.  Mine was truly special.

My Mom was a kind-hearted, compassionate and caring woman.  My Mom was always there for me when I needed her.   
Mom loved her friends and family.  Family was the most important thing to her.  She knew the birthday of every known family member, and never tired of regaling family members with stories about other family members.
I am sad that my mom is gone, but am happy to know that she lived such a long fulfilling life.  I am also thankful that the pain from her decade-long decline is finally over.  
While my mom is not here in the flesh, I know that she is here in spirit. My mom taught me so much and made me the person I am today. I know that her kind heart and spirit had the same impact on many of you here today. I know that my mom's spirit lives on in all of us. 
Mom, I love you and will miss you.

I love Katie. We grew up on two farms in Chatham County, North Carolina. I am only 18 months older than she is.
When we were young we attended the Merry Oaks Baptist Church which was one mile from our home. We were members of the card class, so named because each member was given a card each Sunday. The card had a picture on the front and a message on the back which parents were to discuss with you. This class was for the very youngest children, and Katie was the very youngest. One Sunday the teacher was teaching when Katie jumped up and said “I've got to get out of here,” and she walked across to Mama's class. This is my earliest memory of Katie.
Sometime Katie and I would dress alike. I do not know why this was unless it was easier to buy enough material from the same bolt at the country store near our home. In fact, when we needed anything from the store, Katie and I sometimes were allowed to walk with one of our older sisters to the store. We really enjoyed that.
Katie and I got like items for Christmas for several years. Two years we got a doll for one year and a tea set the other. When we had a little time we would take our dolls and tea sets to the tobacco barn and set them up on our bunks where we slept during tobacco curing season. This was our play house.
At one time Daddy's Aunt Kate lived with us. She was 80+ years old. Her husband fought in the Civil War. One day our parents went away and left Katie and me with Aunt Kate. We decided this was our chance to ride the horse which Daddy would not have permitted had he been there. We rode the horse up and down the dirt road in front of our house. We were very careful to get the horse back into the pasture before our parents returned. As soon as they walked into the house Mama said, “who has been here riding a horse?” So much for keeping our adventure a secret. We had forgotten about the tracks on the road. 
There were six children in our family. When all left home except Katie and me, Mama and Daddy decided it was time to move back to Durham. Katie and I stayed with our sister Annie Mae and her husband Roy and finished our year at Moncure High School. I graduated and we also came to Durham. I went to work for Belk – Leggett store and so did our sister Louise. Katie went to Business School and when she graduated, she went to work for a group of doctors. She worked there for several years.
 Katie and I double dated sometimes. She began to get serious about one man but lost interest when she met Don. They married a year before my husband James and I married. We each had three children almost the same ages, except Jan is a year older than my oldest son Phil. We have each lost a child…..her youngest Susan and my oldest Phil.
We had many good times visiting in Ohio and in Raleigh and Durham. I will miss her terribly, but I'm thankful she is now healed and happy. I look forward to a reunion when I get to heaven.

Grandma was a tough cookie!  I think there are many things you don't appreciate about the adults in your life until you are an adult yourself.   I appreciate that she always knew her own mind, and knew how to get things done.  She taught me the phrase “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”…and how to use it.  I find myself using it regularly when teaching others how to make things happen.  She was always very proud of the time she spent in the workplace and her accomplishments there.   I don't know that she would have ever considered herself a feminist, but her self-confidence in her abilities and capabilities laid the foundation for me to never have any doubt that I could do anything as well as any guy.  
Grandma had a knack for giving others exactly what they needed.  I call it a gift of giving.  When we were kids, Grandma always made Christmas magical for us.  Maybe it was because she grew up without much that she knew how to make $10 turn into a stocking full of treasures.  And because there were so many of us, sometimes it was hard to see the tree for the stacks of presents!  Christmas times were truly magical and some of my best memories growing up.  Her giving went beyond family.  She always had a project.  I remember her collecting stuffed animals to send with first responders (like EMS and police) to give to children who were in the middle of a crisis. Or collecting toiletries for homeless shelters.  Or filling Christmas shoeboxes every year to send to kids in 3rd world countries.  She would use the biggest shoeboxes she could find, and pack them as full as possible and still get the lid on.  She was so irritated with other people that didn't fill their shoeboxes completely full.  The year that she managed the local shoebox collection station, she bought extra items and I helped her add to and repack boxes that, in her opinion, weren't full enough.  I'm pretty sure that her boxes were a treasure to many, many kids around the world – just like our Christmas stockings were for us.
Grandma was a strong woman and the matriarch of our family.  She is irreplaceable.  I have the hope that she is finally with her Maker and without physical pain, and that I will see her again someday.  Miss you, Grandma.

How does one measure a life well lived?  By the family and friends who love you and the memories we share.
I will remember most the contagious laugh that would shake her whole body – usually when telling a story.
I will certainly always remember her indomitable will – which she used in my life to bargain down the price of my jaw surgery when I was in high school – from about $25,000 to $14,000 – in half a day!
And I will miss the twinkle in her eye that she would share in quiet amusement over some daily anecdote.
Grandma, you are loved and missed.

OBITUARY

Katie Richards

December 18, 1929 – October 11, 2013

Brown-Wynne Funeral Home

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