Mary Catherine "Kay" Spauld Barker 1941

Mary Catherine "Kay" Spaulding Barker

Mary Catherine Spaulding Barker passed way in the early evening hours of Thursday January 8, 2009, at the age of 91. “Kay” as she was known most of her life, was a wife, mother, homemaker and kindergarten teacher living in Miami, from 1944-1991, when she moved to the Tampa area to be near her grown children.

Kay was born April 24, 1917 at the Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls Montana. She was the first of three children born to the Reverend Walter Burton Spaulding and his wife Vera Clare Cozier Spaulding. Rev. Spaulding was a young Methodist minister in the early days of Montana. The family moved every few years, spending time in several Montana towns.

Her mother was killed and the children were severely injured in an auto accident in 1928, when Kay was ten. Her father remarried Jessie Fern Lease, teacher and organist at the Great Falls Methodist Church in October, 1929. Jessie raised the children and was mother to them all.

Kay attended Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska, and graduated in 1940 with a degree in Social Work. After graduation, while she was working temporarily as a waitress in Missoula, Montana, she met her future husband, William John Barker. Bill had been raised in Ohio and graduated from Ohio State University in 1933. After graduation, he traveled the world both on his own and with the US Army Signal Corps. He was then employed by the Civil Aeronautics Administration (later called the Federal Aviation Agency) as an Air Traffic Controller. They were married by her father in Missoula in 1941.

Bill and Kay established their first home in Seattle, Washington, where their son Lewis, named after his paternal grandfather, was born. In 1944 the young family moved to Miami, Florida for the warmer weather. Their daughter Susan was born there. Bill continued to work for the FAA until his retirement in 1965. Kay worked for many years as a teacher and later Director of the kindergarten at the Hialeah First United Methodist Church, until she, too retired. Together, in retirement, they traveled in the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East.

Kay loved many things in life: small children, teaching, Boston Terriers, ice cream and the color red. She loved Montana and taught this love of the Big Sky Country to her children. She was a Den Mother for her son’s Cub Scout Troop. The family vacationed on Crooked Lake where they enjoyed water skiing and boating. She volunteered in Church activities. She loved the musical “Auntie Mame” with Rosalind Russell.

Kay was preceded in death by her husband, Bill, and her two younger siblings, Evagene Spaulding Hill and Dr. John Burton Spaulding. She is survived by her two children, two grandchildren, David and Jennifer, and two great-grandchildren Richard III and Kayleigh Matthews, and nieces and nephews.

A memorial service to celebrate her life was held with the immediate family. She will be missed.

Source: The Missoulian. Missoula, Montana. 7 September 1941, Sunday. Page 11.