January 26th 1932 – May 7th, 2016
Kathryn Mary Etchey (Kathy) was born in Carver Minnesota on January 26th 1932 to Grover and Catherine Ingalls. Known as Katie by her siblings, she had four sisters and a brother, named Clifford, Janie, Ivy, Phyllis and Shirley. She grew up in the Minneapolis area and graduated from St Anthony’s of Padua Girls School. Being that St Anthony’s was a catholic school and her parents couldn’t afford the tuition; Kathy worked odd jobs before and after school to cover her tuition.
During school she was an avid athlete enjoying ice skating and softball. She even tried out for the roller derby team which was a feat given her stature was a mere 5 feet tall weighing about 100 pounds.
She briefly lived in California and Colorado before settling in Washington State where she met Doug Etchey while working at Paine Field in Everett.
They started a family upon getting married and had 5 boys between November of 1957 and December of 1961, the youngest being twins. And all she ever wanted was a girl.
When the twins were born, it was a bit of a human interest story in the greater Seattle area. First of all, neither the doctors nor, Kathy and Doug knew they were having twins. Jerome was the first one born and Doug headed to the bar downstairs for a celebratory drink, which was a common practice back then. When Doug returned to the hospital room he found there was another son, Jeff, which followed. We assume he returned to the bar.
There were two items to concern the hospital staff about the twins. First, they were severely premature at just about 3 pounds so they spent their first several weeks in an incubator.
The second concern was that they were identical twins and the staff couldn’t tell them apart. To eliminate this concern, they tattooed Jerome under his arm with the letter A which was the first letter of his middle name, Allan. The human interest part was that they think they marked Jeff instead of Jerome.
When the twins were released from the hospital, the Seattle Times sent a reporter to interview Kathy with her 5 boys sitting around her on the couch. At that time 4 of the 5 were still in diapers. (Cloth diapers.. think about it for a minute..)
The Times posted a photo and article in the front page of the newspaper. The gist of the article was the potential mismarking of the twins. The reporter speculated that when the twins would reach their teenage years and get into a fight, the conversation might go something like this:
Jeff: “Jerome, I’d slug you right in the nose if it wasn’t for the fact that you might be me!”
Kathy needed to assist Doug with paying the bills along with raising 5 boys, so she honed her skills as a typesetter, and printing specialist. She secured a large commercial printer and would work from home in the basement setting ads and brochures for local companies.
The family eventually settled in Kitsap County in the late 70s and because of her special skills, Kathy was recruited by Graham Watson of Watson Furniture Systems on Bainbridge Island. She worked her way up to being his executive secretary until she retired.
In 2001 she and Doug relocated to the Mesa, Arizona area, buying a house on a golf course.
Having never golfed in her life until after retiring, she found that her athletic skills were still present and her golf game was pretty good. She eventually became the president of the women’s league at her golf course.
In her late 70s, she developed macular degeneration and her failing eyesight began to rob her of her favorite activities, reading and cooking. Never to be deterred, she continued to golf into her 80s and enjoyed listening to books on CD.
Kathy’s spirit left this earth at 1:11AM on May 7th, 2016 with family by her side. At that moment, a huge thunderstorm rocked her little house and for the next 5 minutes, there was torrential rain, thunder and lightning over the top of us. She definitely had a celebration upon her arrival.
She is best remembered as a loyal friend, with a sweet nature and a loving heart. She was an amazing mother and we all miss her terribly but are glad to know that she is forever healed of her pain and in the loving arms of our Savior Jesus Christ.
She is survived by her sisters, Ivy and Phyllis along with her 5 sons, Tom (Sallie), Brian, David (Christine), Jerome and Jeff, 10 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Hospice of the Valley in Mesa.
“Mom, please say hi to Merridy for us.”
