Katherine Betancourt Frazer

The funeral service will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Friday, November 8 at Caballero Rivero Little Havana, 3344 SW 8th St., Miami, Florida

Katherine was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica (UK) to Federico Chi Betancourt and Liv Andersen Betancourt on March 29, 1960. She lived her first 9 years in Havana, Cuba with her mother, father and extended Chi Betancourt family. They were refugees of the Communist government and migrated to the United States after a journey through Panama, Mexico, and Hawaii. She attended Coral Park High School in Miami and Miami-Dade College. She lived in Miami, La Jolla, California, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

She married Joseph Atchison Frazer on December 14, 1996 in New York City. Katherine worked in retail for many years at Ann Taylor in Miami and La Jolla, Bergdorf Goodman in New York, and Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco, the latter two as the lead brand rep for the Isaac Mizrahi boutiques.

Katherine was a dedicated mother who was involved in her children’s school and extracurricular activities including baseball, basketball, and ballet in San Carlos and Redwood City, California.

Katherine was a lifetime lover of animals, the arts, fashion, and nature. She rescued a stray cat from the back porch of their Kelton Avenue house and named her Carly. Katherine was tenacious yet carefree, had the most lighthearted sense of humor, and was incredibly warm, loving, strong, and resilient through great diversity. She was a true people person with folks from all walks of life, instantly engaging and earnest in conversation in both Spanish and English.

Katherine is preceded in death by her beloved aunt and Godmother, Sonja “Tante Tutta” Andersen Watson of Honolulu, Hawaii.

Katherine is survived by her loving parents, Federico Chi Betancourt of Miami Beach, Florida, and Liv Andersen Betancourt, and Atle Vere of Miami, Florida and Oslo, Norway, as well as her loving and devoted husband of 28 years, Joseph Atchison Frazer of Coral Gables, Florida, and her children Lance Frederic Frazer, 26, of San Mateo, California, and Sonja Teasley Frazer, 23, of Rohnert Park, California, and Atchison’s daughter, Hillary Mason Frazer, 32, of New York City.

In Memoriam

Katherine’s parents were on vacation in Jamaica from their home in Havana, Cuba and suddenly Katherine came into the world 8 weeks premature. After spending a month in the ICU, the family returned to Havana where Federico and his family ran several businesses at the Havana Hilton and in Chinatown.

Unfortunately, after the despotic Communist regime took over control and devastated freedom in Cuba in the 1960’s, it became apparent that the family would need to flee to a better life. By virtue of Liv’s Norwegian passport and Katherine’s UK passport, they were able to get out of the country first, albeit empty handed. With the help of Tante Tutta and her husband Col. Billy H. Watson, they were able to extract Federico from Cuba to freedom, eventually migrating to Coral Gables.

After high schooling with her longtime friend Astrid Bismarck, and working at Ann Taylor in Miami, Katherine visited La Jolla on vacation, and fell in love with the cove and ocean ultimately transferring to Ann Taylor in La Jolla, where she met her two oldest friends in San Diego, Kim Palumbo and Julieta Thefeld.

In a total case of serendipity, Katherine first met Atchison in San Francisco in September of 1994 while out and about in the city on Kim’s bachelorette party. Atchison was on business travel to a technology event and dutifully got in touch with Katherine back in La Jolla the following week, and after several months of long-distance friendship and dating, and a brief detour to Singapore, Katherine and Atchison settled in Manhattan with young Hillary.

After successfully marrying at the Plaza Hotel in NYC, Atchison was able to transfer within his company for a new job in San Francisco, to be closer to Hillary, who had relocated to the San Jose area with her mother. They lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 25 years, as Atchison enjoyed the highs and lows of the tech world with HP, Fortinet, Cisco, and HPE, while Katherine was a full-time mother and volunteer, where she met her met her best friend, Yui Gennaro.

In the ensuing years, they were blessed with the birth of their children Lance and Sonja, who enjoyed a wonderful childhood in the City of Good Living, San Carlos, California, and later high school in Redwood City, California, whereas Hillary did the same in Los Altos, California, graduating high school in Mountain View.

After high school, Hillary decided to return to Manhattan, where she attended and graduated from Parsons School of Design, and has enjoyed a successful career in the fashion and beauty industries. Lance followed suit and attended Fordham University in the Bronx and Lincoln Center, graduating during the pandemic with a degree in international finance, which he has put to good use in his first job in operational finance at Verkada based in San Mateo. Sonja attended Pace University in lower Manhattan for a semester during the pandemic, before transferring to Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, where she is currently studying criminal justice.

After surviving a couple of health scares related to a rare blood disease, the COVID pandemic, and other California challenges, Atchison and Katherine relocated to South Florida in 2021 in order to be closer to Katherine’s parents and family, and also Atchison’s extended family in Nashville and Atlanta.

Unfortunately, just four months ago, Katherine suffered another rare health crisis, related to her blood cancer that she had successfully fought into remission after 10 years, but this time resulting in a devastating neurological disorder in which there is no cure, treatment, or drug protocol. In true fashion, Katherine showed her strength and resilience to fight this disease.

The family would like to thank the doctors and staff at the University of Miami Miller School of Neurology and the UHealth Tower hospital team, especially her attending APRN Shane Soorus, the Jackson Health Lynn Rehabilitation Center for acute neurological care, and the hospice care team at VITAS Healthcare, and most all, her hematologist at Stanford University, Dr. Jason Gotlib. Also, the family would like to acknowledge the doctors and medical professionals who took the time to learn about Katherine’s story including NIH, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, M.D. Anderson, and the Cleveland Clinic. We hope the knowledge gained about Katherine’s case helps medical science discover meaningful progress and eventually a cure for future patients.

The family would like to request that any donations in memoriam go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Best Buddies of Florida, ASPCA, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).