1935 - 2016 (80 years)
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Name |
Katharine Laura Fernald |
Nickname |
Kay |
Born |
10 May 1935 |
Glen Ridge, New Jersey, USA |
Gender |
Female |
Died |
25 Jan 2016 |
Bozeman, Montana, USA |
Person ID |
I21427 |
Family Tree |
Last Modified |
20 Jun 2017 |
Family |
William Andrews Beebe, b. 11 May 1935, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA , d. 2 Oct 2016, Bozeman, Montana, USA (Age 81 years) |
Married |
8 Mar 1958 |
Children |
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Last Modified |
20 Jun 2017 |
Family ID |
F10269 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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Notes |
- Kay passed away peacefully at home on Monday, January 25, 2016. She was born on May 10, 1935 in Glen Ridge, NJ, the daughter of James and Effie Fernald. Kay shared her arrival with her twin brother, Fred.
Kay grew up in Verona, NJ, and after high school attended the University of Vermont (UVM), from which she graduated in 1957. While at UVM, she met Bill Beebe, also a student at the school. They became engaged on Graduation Eve and married on March 8, 1958. After a honeymoon trip to Aspen for skiing, they arrived at their final destination of Las Vegas where Bill immediately began his Air Force tour of duty. They remained in Las Vegas for a little more two years during which time their first son, Chris, was born. In late May of 1959, Bill was deployed to Shemya Island in the Aleutians. As this was a remote site, Kay and Chris returned to the East Coast, living first with her parents in Verona and finally with Bill?s parents in Burlington, VT, where on January 5, 1961, their second son, Michael, was born.
Bill resigned from the Air Force as soon as his tour was complete in 1961 and the family, now reunited, moved to Boston where Bill enrolled in the Harvard Business School. Upon graduation, it was back to the greater New York area where Bill was employed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Kay was employed feeding and chasing two increasingly active young men. After about three years, Bill accepted a position as Chief Financial Officer at a then small company called Dunkin? Donuts in the Boston area and the family moved to Scituate, MA. There they remained for the next 35 years until Kay got her long standing wish to relocate to Montana where she could be closer to her family as both boys had come west to college and were rapidly building families of their own. Kay and Bill arrived in the fall of 2000 and spent the first six months in a cabin on Brackett Creek Road in the Bridgers while their new home on St. Andrews Dr. in Bozeman was completed.
Kay was an enthusiastic, energetic person who endeared herself to people wherever she went. She was always ready to learn from new people and experiences and to help wherever she could. She enjoyed classical music (Beethoven a favorite) and sang with the Harvard Dames and the chorus of the New Jersey Oratorio Society. She was an active member of the Junior Leagues in New Jersey and Boston, and dedicated volunteer for the PBS channel in Boston and the Intermountain Opera Company in Bozeman. She was a member of the Scituate Garden Club, the Brackett Creek Ladies Club, and the Weaver?s Guild of Bozeman. She excelled in the handicraft arts of knitting, embroidery, petit point, sewing, spinning, and weaving and exhibited, gifted, and sold many articles to friends, neighbors, and craft shoppers.
She also was an enthusiastic outdoors person who backpacked, skied (self-described as a ?terminal intermediate?), and was a dedicated conservationist. She participated in several Earth Watch trips in the 1970?s and, in 1977, joined one of the volunteer conservation projects of the American Hiking Society in Wyoming. Finding the management of those projects somewhat disorganized, she volunteered to see if they could be made more effective. That was the start of the Volunteer Vacations Program. By the time ill health forced her to retire as the Director of the program she had, working federal, state and local agencies arranged to send over 3,000 volunteers to sites as varied in location as Alaska to the Virgin Islands and New Hampshire to Hawaii. These groups took on such varied projects as trail maintenance to building cabins and bridges in wilderness areas. Forest Service personnel estimated that the work contributed by the volunteers reduced the government?s cost to complete the various projects by 50%. Kay was presented with many awards by corporations and national or state agencies and, in 1985, was named one of four individuals as ?Outsiders of the Year? by Outsider Magazine. She was also a Director of the American Hiking Society and delighted in participating on as many of the Volunteer projects as time permitted.
Kay was preceded in death by her son, Mike. She is survived by her husband, Bill; son, Chris; daughters-in-law, Nancy Beebe and Sharon Fuller; grandsons, Fergus and Max; granddaughter, Ava; and brother, Fred, and sister-in-law, Gail Fernald; as well as many nieces and nephews and a cat called Sally. She will be missed.
Cremation has taken place. Memorial services will be held Saturday, April 9 at 10:00 a.m. at Dokken-Nelson Sunset Chapel. The family is deeply thankful for the assistance and support provided by Hospice of Bozeman Deaconess.
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