Kathleen W. Bresette

Kathleen, “Mrs. B” Bresette was born in Washington, DC, on October 18,1935, to Nora Splawn Webster and Col. Edward Patrick Webster, Ret. USAF. Kathleen graduated from Holy Trinity High School in Georgetown, Washington, DC, in 1953 where she played varsity basketball (the “Termites”) and won the CYO varsity championship. She attended Trinity College in DC for a year before entering the Carmelite Monastery in Baltimore, Maryland, where she made it through six months of the cloistered convent life. Her father routinely snuck in candy and gum whenever he was allowed to visit her - perhaps signaling that being a nun was not for her. She then earned her Associates Degree at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School from 1955 to 1957. During that time, she met her late husband, John F. (Jack), “Dr. B” Bresette when he stopped by to ask her for the phone number of a friend he wanted to ask out. They spent hours talking that night, and for 62 years more that conversation continued after they married on May 17, 1958, while Jack was finishing medical school at Georgetown.

Kathleen and Jack moved to Weissbaden, Germany in 1960 while Jack completed his military service as an Air Force doctor on the Sembach missile base and then back to the DC area in 1963 where Jack began his career as a urologist. They lived in and around DC as the family expanded to nine children. Kathleen worked as a travel agent and then as an office administrator at Georgetown University Medical School. But her true passion was raising and being with her children and the larger extended family who were a part of the fun, boisterous, welcoming Bresette household, which included her beloved Uncle Joe. She was dedicated to social justice and advocacy for those most at risk and oppressed, encouraging Jack to be a founder of the Zaccheas Free Medical Clinic (later Bread for the City) and often protesting (with all nine children) in support of issues such as the United Farm Workers boycotts or the No Nukes protest in DC.

Kathleen was always up for an adventure. In 1978, she took eight of the children out of school and packed everyone up in an RV and VW bus and went on a cross country trip - with her mother serving as the in-house school master. Jack would fly out to join the menagerie every couple of weeks.

Sandy Neck and Barnstable became the center of the Bresette family life over the years of vacations there and eventually when she and Jack moved to the Cape in the late 1990’s. Kathleen’s heart was never far from her beloved Sandy Neck. She used to say that if heaven doesn’t look like Sandy Neck, I’m not going.

She was the matriarch of 9 children, 24 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and those who became extended family, all of whom loved her dearly and carry the values she exemplified in her life: everyone is welcome at the family table and there is always room for one more - pull up a chair, grab a plate, stay for a minute for hours, or months; play cards, puzzle; always stay busy; read avidly and every day; use the library; don’t ever let school get in the way of education; if the Smithsonian is in your backyard, treat it as your playground; learn how to knit or sew or anything, but keep learning; have tons of pets; choose adventure always; make your bed perfectly - every day; keep lists; advocate and protect those who are marginalized - always; watch as much college basketball as you can; there’s always room for coffee ice cream; and be strong, consistent, confident, loving, open-hearted and fierce when you need to be on behalf of those you love or who need your strength.

For all those who felt Kathleen’s love, she “was like the dawn brightening over our lives… we look toward each other no longer from the distance of our names. Now you dwell in our breath…. May you continue to inspire us to enter each day with a generous heart to serve the call of courage and love until we see your beautiful face again in that land where there is no separation.” John O’Donahue

Kathleen is survived by her and Jack’s nine children: Patrick, married to Debbie, Marie, married to Chris Silard, Jeanne, married to Tom Jardeleza, Michael, married to Wanda, John, Thomas, married to Leslie, Kathleen, Matthew and Nora, married to Justin Harden; 24 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Kathleen was predeceased by her brother, Edward Patrick Webster.

Visiting hours will be held at the Doane, Beal & Ames Funeral Home at 160 West Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601, on Thursday, September 4, 2025, from 4-7pm. https://www.doanebealameshyannis.com/

Funeral Mass of Christian Burial at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church, on Friday, September 5, 2025, at 11am, located at 230 S. Main Street, Centerville, MA, 02632. In honor of Kathleen’s life, donations in her name can be given to Sturgis Library, in Barnstable, MA. Donate to Sturgis.