Kathleen Janette Huntress
March 12, 1947-November 27, 2021

Kathy was my precious sister. We grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She moved to Northern California for the love of the giant redwoods, and to be closer to the Grateful Dead as she was quite the Deadhead. Jerry Garcia was “it” to her. Another reason she stated was, “I’m tired of my thighs sticking to Naugahyde seats.” (Oklahoma can be quite humid and hot).

I find it very hard to put her wonderful life qualities into correctly chosen words that can convey, or give one even a small perspective of what a unique individual she was. She had a beautiful soul, always so sweet, so kind. She was highly intelligent. Her humor was unlike any… dry, funny, quick, with ingenious comebacks. Kathy was always young at heart. Her favorite passions from her youth continued to be her enjoyment throughout her life. She was an eternal hippie at heart and Snow White on the side. We watched the scene with Snow White dancing with the seven dwarfs many times… giggling like it was the first time. That was her very special, childlike heart. She made Christmas cards by hand that would take hours, with cut-out designs decorated in glitter, written in beautiful calligraphy, and always a poem with the most hilarious humor in rhythm and rhyme that would have you laughing out loud. Simply: she always cared enough to create a little one-of-a-kind conveyance, each creation kept to be treasured in a memory box. Christmas was a favorite memory as our parents made each and every one a childhood experience we would never forget… There would be the perfect Christmas tree, decorated like fairyland sparkles, each icicle lined on branches from the inside out, one at a time. Each light cord hidden, the gifts from our parents’ hearts that really couldn’t be afforded, the Christmas dinner so lovingly cooked.

She once wrote in a description of our childhood Christmases, “But maybe most of all— the feeling of the silent darkness of the living room in the wee hours, with the moon softly lighting the snow through the picture window, casting a dreamlike silver sparkle over all of the mysterious shapes… and above it all there was the smell of a new doll.” How blessed we were. Kathy loved her rose bushes, tending to each one with devotion. Her cats were so very precious to her. She would often go without if they were in need of care. I could speak of her life in much more detail, of her many accomplishments, but I love these sweet, simple memories of her. I will find her spirit in the Redwoods. I visualize her twirling at a Grateful Dead concert. She holds my hand to see what Santa left.

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When I was a kid, it was understood among all my friends that my mom was cool. To me, she was just my mom, but I wasn’t incapable of seeing what they meant, especially after meeting some of their parents. As a teenager my mom had been president of something called Youth for Christ, but by the time I was in the picture she was all blue jeans and rock and roll. Oklahoma had come to feel like a stiff, even repressive environment, and of course we would eventually move to Humboldt. Still, she always found ways to remain creatively individual: she played the piano, the hammered dulcimer, and made stained glass.

In the early seventies my mom traveled widely. Beginning in London, she gradually made her way to Pakistan, India and Laos. She taught English in Laos, and deeply loved her students for their seriousness and dedication. She loved to regale with stories of her travels. For instance, there was a tense customs checkpoint in Rawalpindi. In another story which I find astonishing even as I type it, she and a few friends somehow gained entry to the Taj Mahal, and nearly fell into a deep chasm while exploring a pitch-black passageway. Before I was born, my mom was basically Indiana Jones.

She spoke French beautifully, sometimes with little justification. She would leave us confused but impressed. She loved John Steinbeck, and it was as a tourist, drawn partly by my mom’s interest in the John Steinbeck festival in Salinas, that I first visited California. We moved from Tulsa to Fortuna in 1990, and then to Eureka in 1995. She loved Victorian houses, and was blessed to live in a beautiful one for many years.

My mom was an incredibly kind and charismatic person. She supported me at every stage of my life, and she made a positive impression on virtually everyone she ever met. If you knew her at all then you understand what I mean, and if you didn’t know her, I wish you could have. I really think you would have liked her.

Kathy is survived by her sister Debby Kelsey, and her son Jonathan Moreno.

A celebration of Kathy’s life is planned for what would have been her 75th birthday: March 12. For information about this please email Jonathan Moreno at jmoreno600@gmail.com.

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