Barbara Jean Kay

Barbara Jean Kay went home to be with her Lord on January 31, 2025. She was born to Herbert and Grace Kuefner in Des Moines, Iowa on October 28, 1928. She was a 1946 graduate of Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. She married Richard W. Graves in June of 1947 and resided in the Des Moines area until 1975, when she left to pursue job opportunities with the federal government in Missouri, Colorado, and Texas. She began her career in the typing pool and rose to the position of Regional Personnel Officer for Region IV of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in their Arlington, Texas office.

While in Colorado, she met and married George M. Kay in October 1977. After retiring from government service in 1985, Barbara and George moved to Green Valley, Arizona, where they became charter members of Desert Hills Lutheran Church. She loved Green Valley, but she also enjoyed traveling abroad to many foreign countries with George. She was a proud member of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association.

Barbara did not let retirement slow her down. She volunteered for two years with Green Valley Assistance Services and eleven years with Friends In Deed, a local nonprofit service providing transportation, loans of medical equipment, and space for meetings, activities and socialization to people in the area at no cost. Barbara served as president of Friends In Deed her final five years with the organization.

After her husband George’s death in 2009, she eventually sold her home in Green Valley in 2018 and moved to be near her son Brian and his family in the Dallas, Texas area. Brian was a great help to her in her final years.

Barbara was preceded in death by her parents, her brother Robert Kuefner of Urbandale, Iowa, her first husband Richard (30 yrs.), and her second husband George (32 yrs.). She is survived and loved by her sons Gary Graves (Kathryn) of Raymore, Missouri, and Brian Graves (Jane) of Carrollton, Texas, her granddaughters Emily, Charlotte, Sarah and Hannah, and eight great-grandchildren.

Graveside services will be held at East Lawn Palms Cemetery in Tucson, Arizona on February 18, 2025, at 3 pm. Pastor Craig Larson from Desert Hills Lutheran Church of Green Valley will be officiating, after which Barbara will be laid to rest with her husband, George.