Kathryn Louise Knecht

Mom’s favorite color was green.

She loved sports, especially basketball. Her favorite team was the Golden State Warriors, and Seph Curry was her guy! She liked the Rays, too. I’ll bet you didn’t know that she was ping pong champion of Akron, Ohio, where she was born on June 21,1924. She had a degree in Business from the University of Tampa and served as bookeeper for A-1 Lock and Key Service for many years. She passed away on August 23, 2021. She wanted to live to be 100, and she came pretty close.

She is proceeded in death by her husband, R. Paul Knecht. She is survived by her brother, John Hughey and his wife Janet; her sons, Keith Knecht and his wife Marilyn; Craig Knecht and Connie Vargas, a passel of grandchildren; great-grandchildren; and two great great-grandchildren.

Every Christmas Eve, she used to stay up all night wrapping presents. Her presents were always the last to be opened, and each came with a note, a verse, or a story. These weren’t store- bought gifts. They were something that she owned. It might have been something from Africa or something from another country that she and my father had visited. It could have been her recipe book or a million other things that were precious to her; and even it wasn’t especially important to you, you knew that it was her way of giving you a piece of her love and herself. It didn’t hurt that when this happened, she was the center of attention. She had a flair for the dramatic and loved public speaking. She called herself the Town Crier of Aston Gardens Assisted Living, where she spent her final years. Each morning at 11:00, she read from a small newspaper published by the facility. She loved the staff there. She called them care givers. She loved everything there but the food. She did like to eat, though, and boy was she a slow eater! Each bite had to be chewed 27 times before swallowing. Desserts were her favorite.

Mom was strong-willed and independent. That was no more self-evident than when she went with her sons and husband to serve as Lay Missionaries in Liberia, Africa or when she took those two small boys and drove from Ohio to Miami, Florida since my dad had to go on ahead because of work. You may not be familiar with the term “Lay” Missionary. It simply means that my mom and dad were not ordained pastors. She was a staunch Lutheran, though, and since Martin Luther said that every man was a priest, she didn’t have to be ordained to spread the Word. Did I say every MAN? Well, the Bible says that in Christ they are neither male or female, slave or free. She might point that out to you. I wouldn’t exactly call her a “Women’s Libber”, but she was a strong advocate for women’s ability to do just about anything. She loved the Lord and devoted a great deal of her life to church work. She even led a Bible Study at Aston Gardens.

DAMN Covid! We couldn’t be with her in those final moments, but her Lord and Savior was with her, and she might ask, “How about you? Will He be with you when that time comes?”

Did I tell you that green was my mom’s favorite color? Well, it was.

“Green was her favorite color.”

I woke up at 2:00 a.m. last Tuesday night with those exact words on my mind and then immediately, the words to a song followed.

The song was by a group called “The New Christy Minstrels” and its Chorus went something like this:

Green, green it’s green they say, on the far side of the hill. Green, green I’m goin’ away to where the grass is greener still.

A gathering of family and friends for Kathryn will be held Sunday, September 5, 2021 from 2:00 - 4:00PM at Blount & Curry FH-MacDill, 605 S MacDill Avenue, Tampa, FL. A funeral service will occur Tuesday, September 7, 2021 at 10AM, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 501 S Dale Mabry Hwy, Tampa, FL. The committal service will follow at 1PM, Florida National Cemetery, 6502 S. W. 102nd Ave, Bushnell, FL.