Karen Frances Bjork

Karen grew up in the Denver area and attended local schools and after high school was awarded a degree in accounting from Barnes Business School. Karen married Jan Hytinen and was blessed with two children Michael and Jana. Karen and family later moved to Minnesota during the back-to-earth days (without any running water or electricity). Several years later the family returned to Denver and Karen and Jan divorced. Karen worked for several companies during this period, then was hired by Whittaker Corp. where she met Vernon Bjork and married in 1981. Jana joined the Navy and Michael moved to Seattle to further his college education.

Karen and Vernon moved to Parker, Co in 1985 and Karen left Whittaker to work for USPS and was promoted until she was invited to serve as temporary postmaster in four areas surrounding the Denver area. In 1995 Whittaker corporation decided to sell the Denver office then relocate to Connecticut and since this change was unacceptable Vernon took retirement and they relocated to Sun City West, AZ in the fall of 1995.

Karen remained employed with the Postal Service until early 1996 when she suddenly decided to join the retirement ranks. She fit right into the retirement community and soon found a church where she was active in Missions and joined three other ladies to visit Ireland and Scotland for three weeks but found that driving on the wrong side of the road was a little harder than they had envisioned. This started her dream of traveling a lot and Karen and Jana flew over to Vietnam to visit Michael who was there teaching English. Vernon and Karen traveled extensively across southern United States and Karen cherished her trips to the Washington DC area. Karen and Vernon started cruising by going from Boston to Quebec, Canada followed by all over the Southern Caribbean and Panama Canal and then over to the Mediterranean into Rome, the Vatican, Greece, Turkey and Egypt to visit the pyramids which she loved.

Later Karen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and finally the Lord took her home to be with him on December 26th, 2025. Karen is survived by her husband Vernon, brother Richard, son Michael and daughter Jana (husband Philip). Karen has two grandchildren, Lawrence and Andrew and three great grandchildren, Ila, Kerrie-Anne and William. Karen also has four stepchildren Bruce, Deanna, Kevin, Cheryl (husband Mike) and six grandchildren Jimmy, Crystal, Mike, Greg, Becki and Samantha, and seven great grandchildren Tyler, Kali, Charlie, Ryan, Shelby, Cade and Greyson.