Katherine Ross Goodwin

Katherine Ross Goodwin, age 87, passed away peacefully on Thanksgiving, November 27, 2025. Katherine, a long-time resident of Arlington, TX, was in her final years residing at The Jasper Senior Living facility in Mansfield. Services will be held Saturday, December 6th at 10:00 AM at All Souls Episcopal Church, 201 W. Main Street, Arlington, TX 76010.

Katherine, or Kit, Aunt Kitty, and Nana to her many, many family, friends, nieces, nephews, and grandson, lived an exciting life filled with physical adventures, parties, intellectual adventures, and her share of tragedy, but always with a full dose of kindness for those around her. She was born in California, but quickly moved with her mother, Marion, to her family’s home in Georgia. Surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins she was known to be a tom boy. Her mother married a professional soldier and World War II veteran, James Ross, and she spent her formative years in and around Fort Bragg.

Outgrowing her tom boy phase, she found new interests in modeling and beauty pageants. After graduating high school, she attended Georgia Tech for a couple of years, but became restless to see more of the world, and signed up to be a stewardess for American Airlines, based in Ft. Worth, TX. It was the glamour days of flying, and unmarried women were the hostesses of the sky. She was assigned the famous (infamous?) “Tequila run” from her home airport of Dallas Love Field to Mexico City. Eventually, she became part of American Airlines VIP crew and was part of the crew that hosted a special flight to bring the original seven Apollo astronauts from LA to Houston.

Introduced by common friends, she fell in love with and married a man from Graham, TX—Michael Weir Goodwin. Though she deliberately did not tell her employer, they eventually found out. At the time, married women were not allowed to be stewardesses, and American Airlines moved her from stewardess to the ground operations/hosting crew. It was part of her job on November 22, 1963 to escort Judge Sarah Hughes to meet and swear in Lyndon Baines Johnson as President.

Life seemed to calm down and she moved to New York City so that Michael could train and work as a stockbroker on Wall Street. However, when she became pregnant with their first child, the soon to be Christopher, they decided to move back to Texas. After the birth of her son, Katherine settled into a life centered on her family volunteering at many organizations, including her church, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, the Junior Women’s Club, and with the birth of her daughter, Melissa Kate Goodwin in 1975, more organizations including Girl Scouts.

Feeling restless again, this time she embarked on more intellectual pursuits, attending the University of Texas at Arlington to finish her Bachelor’s in History in 1985, and then going on to complete a Masters, with a specialty in Southwestern Historical maps in 1989 After being certified as an archivist, she went to work at the Special Collections Library for the University. While there, she curated many exhibits, wrote, edited, and compiled three books, and even at one point worked with retail magnate Stanley Marcus to create mini books that he carried in his pockets and gave out to people at his flagship Neiman-Marcus store.

Katherine’s first husband died in 1993, whereby she became the widowed mother of her teenage daughter, and her son who was in graduate school. She worked with the Texas Map Society and at her church, where a few years later she met and married Reuel Jentgen in 1996. She and her husband were part of a contingent of parishioners who left St. Alban’s and formed a new church that eventually became All Souls Episcopal Church in downtown Arlington.

After retiring and continuing their adventures traveling around Texas together, her husband Reuel passed in June 2019. Katherine continued her activities with the church and her family, finally passing peacefully on Thanksgiving of this year. She truly lived a full life, connected to history, family, and friends throughout. She is survived by her daughter, Melissa Fetch and husband Brandon, her son Chris Goodwin and wife Stephanie and their son Skyler, her stepdaughter Christine Towndrow and husband Brian, and her stepdaughter Laurel Jentgen.