Kathleen Stefanelli

She is survived by me, 3 sisters and 2 nieces and a nephew.

Kathleen was born November 12, 1925 in a small Indiana town named Burket, and raised on a small farm by strong and caring  parents Con and Vesta Williamson and became her small high school’s valedictorian and salutatorian.  She started her studies at Indiana University in 1943 and married Frank Waltz, a fellow Indiana University classmate in 1944.  She postponed her studies to wait for Frank to finish his studies in Pre-Med.  While she waited, she worked at an RCA wartime electronics plant and was promoted to Line Supervisor.  After Frank completed his Physics and Pre-Med studies, she completed her last 2 courses and graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. degree in Medical Technology in June 1949.

She moved to several cities in her early marriage years, due to her husband’s military and civilian involvement as one of the Cyclotron operators at the Manhattan project in Oak Ridge Tennessee from 1944 to 1945.

The couple welcomed 5 children into their homes during the period of 1951 through 1956 and Kathleen was kept very busy raising the children and working for the County Coroner as a Medical Technologist at Chenango Memorial in Norwich, New York.

In 1959, Kathleen and Frank were divorced and after a couple of very challenging years as a single Mother with 5 young children she was introduced to and married Gary Stefanelli who owned a local limited Italian menu Restaurant.

Kathleen soon took the lead in turning a small roadside café into a thriving 4 star 80-seat restaurant, lounge and 24 unit Motel, over a period of 7 years.  She continued to run the business for 18 years and didn’t get much sleep during this time while she was also doing the ironing, washing, feeding and general child rearing of 5 kids at the same time—including Gary, her husband, who she referred to as her sixth child and who referred to Kathleen as “Mother”.  During this time, she always encouraged each of her children to strive to be the best that they could in school to help them achieve their future goals.

Kathleen was an avid fan of Sudoku and crossword puzzles and was an accomplished seamstress, and a seasonal decoration artist.

She was always making home just a little more cheerful with her little artistic touches—like filling various clear bottles and vases with colored water to match the various holidays and seasonal events and decorating the house with various objects, as well; especially at Christmas time, which she made sure was special for us kids on Christmas day.

In later life, she held various jobs tending bar, selling jewelry, and promoting special foods at Publix.

At the age of 70, I took my Mother in to live with me and slowly began to spend more and more time taking care of her, right up to being her primary caretaker for 20 months and then helping her move on to her Eternal Peace.

In closing, here are a couple favorite memories, out of numerous other memories, that I think made her special:

When I was 14 and outweighed her by 50 lbs and was a foot taller, I made the mistake of disrespecting her one day. I was totally shocked when she picked me up off my feet so there was eye to eye contact and she told me “Don’t you EVER talk to me that way, again!”  I got the message and never did that again.

I was selected to attend an Advanced Biology summer course at Colgate University after completing the 10th grade and had forgotten to bring my final Fruit fly Genetics Study report with me on the bus to the Colgate campus – a trip of 18 miles from home. Halfway there, the bus driver got on his Public address microphone and asked if anyone knew the driver of a car behind us going 70 miles a hour with lights flashing, horn blaring and waving their hand out the window.  It was my Mother.  She handed me my paper and told me she had to go back to work and Good Luck.  My ears were Red from embarrassment the rest of the trip, but I was able to tell her later that I received an A for my report.

At this time, I would like to invite other members of my family to share one or two of their favorite memories that they think made Mother special to them: