Kathryn Marie Jones
APRIL 6, 1952 – JANUARY 17, 2021
KATHY HAAR JONES was born April 6th, 1952 and passed on January 17th, 2021. I met her through mutual friends at Bullard.
My first direct encounter with Kathy was in March 1969 when Bob Cooper and I visited her home off Fruit and Shaw. She invited us in and played her Santa Cruz hippie music to us, Youngbloods Elephant Mountain, Neil Young Solo debut, and John Mayall Blues From Laurel Canyon. After a particularly intimate song “First Time Alone” she looked at me squarely with her flashing green eyes and asked, “Do you understand?” (See, I was a bit dull.) I did understand!! We dated that night — at the end of that incredible day I said I’d enjoy seeing her again.
When I kissed her at her door after our first date, I pressed hard to immediately secure another date, she half nodded, so I left unsure, nervous I was moving too fast. About one half hour later, around 11 pm, I heard a knock at my family’s house on San Bruno.... I answered the door and there she stood. A nearly 17 year old vision. I was surprised, a little scared I had pushed too hard, too quick, and she was there to cool me down, frightened off. I asked in deflection, “did you leave your purse in my car?” She just fixed me with a look and said “when?” I was (at barely 18 years old) confused, I stammered, “when ........ what?” — she, “you said you’d like to go out again, when?” So bold... I was swept away by how much she wanted to be with me, how honestly she exposed herself. It was so mutual, she won me in that moment. It was a turning point in my life and more importantly, I knew it. The next night was open and we were inseparable for the following four years.
We shared our college years full of unique experiences. She and I had a mutual love of music of every type, concerts, theater, four hour dinners at favorite continental restaurants, art, books, comedy, sports, nature, travel, family, name it. We wanted it all and got what we wanted. Nobody is perfect but she was perfect for me, the journey was our adventure.
After a long distance relationship during college, life’s complications intervened we went our different directions. She graduated FSU and became a waitress at Cask and Cleaver, Refectory, Vallis’, The Daily Planet, and more. I ran into her at every restaurant I ever took a date. Oddly she was my waitress at least three times — once at Vallis’ bringing a glass, pouring herself a healthy shot of our wine she sat and began catching up with me as my date watched on in horror. (last date with that lucky lady).
Kathy lived with Billy Reitz for a number of years through her twenties in the Tower and he has always had a special place in her heart. She got engaged to a different guy in her 30s whose name I have blocked out (not) inviting me to her engagement party! — astonished I went and congratulated her, wished her happiness.
That engagement fell apart (thankfully) and Kathy went to nursing school, got her RN and so about 17 years after we had broken up she and I both found ourselves single, golfed, dated, she married Andy, and settled into raising a family together.
There followed the 20 most satisfying years of our life. Every single day was a joy to be alive. The pleasure multiplied tenfold raising two wonderful boys, Samuel Casey and Henry Tyler. With them we summered, wintered, springed, and falled in Santa Cruz, skied, hiked, camped, kayaked, surfed, golfed, chased live music up and down the coast, traveled the west, Mexico, and the world. We lived our dreams.
She was first stricken with slight memory loss 10 years ago. She ignored it. Though she never was exactly the same Kathy I married again after 2010, she motored on despite her onset of Alzheimer’s. She became something even more amazing, a fearless uninhibited woman who acted not from reason but from the trusting core of an open hearted instinct. She traveled the world, pet a cobra, rode horses in Bhutan in the Himalayas, rode an elephant in India, rafted the Ganges, acting as lead designer/project manager building our cottage in Santa Cruz, designing and etching murals, making furniture, making and gifting ornaments, single-handed creating all our gardens. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Everything she put her hand to brought beauty into our lives. Everything. She approached perfect strangers and told them they were beautiful, that she loved — anything about them — their hair, clothes, smile, aura. It was delightful to ride in her wake, to see people respond to her freed soul with tentative but gratefully warm pleasure.
Yesterday our great friend Bobby Koligian penned some beautiful kind thoughts about Kathy. Thank you Bobby. She was indeed my soulmate. As he says, I was lucky to share the years I had with her. As soon as we begin to socialize again, I want to host a memorial to celebrate Kathy‘s life. We need a fun loving legendary party that will honor her memory with the status I alone know she deserved.
While I am not religious in the sense of doctrinal teachings, I am spiritual. I know there is no power in the universe strong enough to extinguish the essence of such an exquisite soul. Kathy was super smart and did everything to the best of her ability. She was independent, creative, artistic, inquisitive, athletic, uninhibited, and beautiful. I never knew her to (before the dementia) act mean to anyone. Her better angels influenced and made me a different person. Once she imprinted me with her merry joyful contented amused outlook on life I innocently adopted that attitude. It was that affirmation of life you all sensed, that she passed on to everyone she met. Bobby felt, described, and captured that essence:
“Kathy's infectious laugh and her true love of life. She never met a stranger and always created warmth where there was cold . . . . light where there was dark . . . . and love where there was none.“
Her positive life force animated us all and will persist somehow, even if it is only in the ripples of the collective memories that those of us like you, who knew and loved her, will pass on through time to others. I hope to one day reunite with Kathy’s soul (happened before!) but if not, I’m satisfied I have experienced something close to Heaven with her here on earth already.
She was the best person I ever met. That will never change. It will never disappear. I adored her Andy Jones
Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home
Fresno, California
APRIL 6, 1952 – JANUARY 17, 2021
KATHY HAAR JONES was born April 6th, 1952 and passed on January 17th, 2021. I met her through mutual friends at Bullard.
My first direct encounter with Kathy was in March 1969 when Bob Cooper and I visited her home off Fruit and Shaw. She invited us in and played her Santa Cruz hippie music to us, Youngbloods Elephant Mountain, Neil Young Solo debut, and John Mayall Blues From Laurel Canyon. After a particularly intimate song “First Time Alone” she looked at me squarely with her flashing green eyes and asked, “Do you understand?” (See, I was a bit dull.) I did understand!! We dated that night — at the end of that incredible day I said I’d enjoy seeing her again.
When I kissed her at her door after our first date, I pressed hard to immediately secure another date, she half nodded, so I left unsure, nervous I was moving too fast. About one half hour later, around 11 pm, I heard a knock at my family’s house on San Bruno.... I answered the door and there she stood. A nearly 17 year old vision. I was surprised, a little scared I had pushed too hard, too quick, and she was there to cool me down, frightened off. I asked in deflection, “did you leave your purse in my car?” She just fixed me with a look and said “when?” I was (at barely 18 years old) confused, I stammered, “when ........ what?” — she, “you said you’d like to go out again, when?” So bold... I was swept away by how much she wanted to be with me, how honestly she exposed herself. It was so mutual, she won me in that moment. It was a turning point in my life and more importantly, I knew it. The next night was open and we were inseparable for the following four years.
We shared our college years full of unique experiences. She and I had a mutual love of music of every type, concerts, theater, four hour dinners at favorite continental restaurants, art, books, comedy, sports, nature, travel, family, name it. We wanted it all and got what we wanted. Nobody is perfect but she was perfect for me, the journey was our adventure.
After a long distance relationship during college, life’s complications intervened we went our different directions. She graduated FSU and became a waitress at Cask and Cleaver, Refectory, Vallis’, The Daily Planet, and more. I ran into her at every restaurant I ever took a date. Oddly she was my waitress at least three times — once at Vallis’ bringing a glass, pouring herself a healthy shot of our wine she sat and began catching up with me as my date watched on in horror. (last date with that lucky lady).
Kathy lived with Billy Reitz for a number of years through her twenties in the Tower and he has always had a special place in her heart. She got engaged to a different guy in her 30s whose name I have blocked out (not) inviting me to her engagement party! — astonished I went and congratulated her, wished her happiness.
That engagement fell apart (thankfully) and Kathy went to nursing school, got her RN and so about 17 years after we had broken up she and I both found ourselves single, golfed, dated, she married Andy, and settled into raising a family together.
There followed the 20 most satisfying years of our life. Every single day was a joy to be alive. The pleasure multiplied tenfold raising two wonderful boys, Samuel Casey and Henry Tyler. With them we summered, wintered, springed, and falled in Santa Cruz, skied, hiked, camped, kayaked, surfed, golfed, chased live music up and down the coast, traveled the west, Mexico, and the world. We lived our dreams.
She was first stricken with slight memory loss 10 years ago. She ignored it. Though she never was exactly the same Kathy I married again after 2010, she motored on despite her onset of Alzheimer’s. She became something even more amazing, a fearless uninhibited woman who acted not from reason but from the trusting core of an open hearted instinct. She traveled the world, pet a cobra, rode horses in Bhutan in the Himalayas, rode an elephant in India, rafted the Ganges, acting as lead designer/project manager building our cottage in Santa Cruz, designing and etching murals, making furniture, making and gifting ornaments, single-handed creating all our gardens. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Everything she put her hand to brought beauty into our lives. Everything. She approached perfect strangers and told them they were beautiful, that she loved — anything about them — their hair, clothes, smile, aura. It was delightful to ride in her wake, to see people respond to her freed soul with tentative but gratefully warm pleasure.
Yesterday our great friend Bobby Koligian penned some beautiful kind thoughts about Kathy. Thank you Bobby. She was indeed my soulmate. As he says, I was lucky to share the years I had with her. As soon as we begin to socialize again, I want to host a memorial to celebrate Kathy‘s life. We need a fun loving legendary party that will honor her memory with the status I alone know she deserved.
While I am not religious in the sense of doctrinal teachings, I am spiritual. I know there is no power in the universe strong enough to extinguish the essence of such an exquisite soul. Kathy was super smart and did everything to the best of her ability. She was independent, creative, artistic, inquisitive, athletic, uninhibited, and beautiful. I never knew her to (before the dementia) act mean to anyone. Her better angels influenced and made me a different person. Once she imprinted me with her merry joyful contented amused outlook on life I innocently adopted that attitude. It was that affirmation of life you all sensed, that she passed on to everyone she met. Bobby felt, described, and captured that essence:
“Kathy's infectious laugh and her true love of life. She never met a stranger and always created warmth where there was cold . . . . light where there was dark . . . . and love where there was none.“
Her positive life force animated us all and will persist somehow, even if it is only in the ripples of the collective memories that those of us like you, who knew and loved her, will pass on through time to others. I hope to one day reunite with Kathy’s soul (happened before!) but if not, I’m satisfied I have experienced something close to Heaven with her here on earth already.
She was the best person I ever met. That will never change. It will never disappear. I adored her Andy Jones
Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home
Fresno, California
Kathryn Marie Jones
APRIL 6, 1952 – JANUARY 17, 2021
KATHY HAAR JONES was born April 6th, 1952 and passed on January 17th, 2021. I met her through mutual friends at Bullard.
My first direct encounter with Kathy was in March 1969 when Bob Cooper and I visited her home off Fruit and Shaw. She invited us in and played her Santa Cruz hippie music to us, Youngbloods Elephant Mountain, Neil Young Solo debut, and John Mayall Blues From Laurel Canyon. After a particularly intimate song “First Time Alone” she looked at me squarely with her flashing green eyes and asked, “Do you understand?” (See, I was a bit dull.) I did understand!! We dated that night — at the end of that incredible day I said I’d enjoy seeing her again.
When I kissed her at her door after our first date, I pressed hard to immediately secure another date, she half nodded, so I left unsure, nervous I was moving too fast. About one half hour later, around 11 pm, I heard a knock at my family’s house on San Bruno.... I answered the door and there she stood. A nearly 17 year old vision. I was surprised, a little scared I had pushed too hard, too quick, and she was there to cool me down, frightened off. I asked in deflection, “did you leave your purse in my car?” She just fixed me with a look and said “when?” I was (at barely 18 years old) confused, I stammered, “when ........ what?” — she, “you said you’d like to go out again, when?” So bold... I was swept away by how much she wanted to be with me, how honestly she exposed herself. It was so mutual, she won me in that moment. It was a turning point in my life and more importantly, I knew it. The next night was open and we were inseparable for the following four years.
We shared our college years full of unique experiences. She and I had a mutual love of music of every type, concerts, theater, four hour dinners at favorite continental restaurants, art, books, comedy, sports, nature, travel, family, name it. We wanted it all and got what we wanted. Nobody is perfect but she was perfect for me, the journey was our adventure.
After a long distance relationship during college, life’s complications intervened we went our different directions. She graduated FSU and became a waitress at Cask and Cleaver, Refectory, Vallis’, The Daily Planet, and more. I ran into her at every restaurant I ever took a date. Oddly she was my waitress at least three times — once at Vallis’ bringing a glass, pouring herself a healthy shot of our wine she sat and began catching up with me as my date watched on in horror. (last date with that lucky lady).
Kathy lived with Billy Reitz for a number of years through her twenties in the Tower and he has always had a special place in her heart. She got engaged to a different guy in her 30s whose name I have blocked out (not) inviting me to her engagement party! — astonished I went and congratulated her, wished her happiness.
That engagement fell apart (thankfully) and Kathy went to nursing school, got her RN and so about 17 years after we had broken up she and I both found ourselves single, golfed, dated, she married Andy, and settled into raising a family together.
There followed the 20 most satisfying years of our life. Every single day was a joy to be alive. The pleasure multiplied tenfold raising two wonderful boys, Samuel Casey and Henry Tyler. With them we summered, wintered, springed, and falled in Santa Cruz, skied, hiked, camped, kayaked, surfed, golfed, chased live music up and down the coast, traveled the west, Mexico, and the world. We lived our dreams.
She was first stricken with slight memory loss 10 years ago. She ignored it. Though she never was exactly the same Kathy I married again after 2010, she motored on despite her onset of Alzheimer’s. She became something even more amazing, a fearless uninhibited woman who acted not from reason but from the trusting core of an open hearted instinct. She traveled the world, pet a cobra, rode horses in Bhutan in the Himalayas, rode an elephant in India, rafted the Ganges, acting as lead designer/project manager building our cottage in Santa Cruz, designing and etching murals, making furniture, making and gifting ornaments, single-handed creating all our gardens. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Everything she put her hand to brought beauty into our lives. Everything. She approached perfect strangers and told them they were beautiful, that she loved — anything about them — their hair, clothes, smile, aura. It was delightful to ride in her wake, to see people respond to her freed soul with tentative but gratefully warm pleasure.
Yesterday our great friend Bobby Koligian penned some beautiful kind thoughts about Kathy. Thank you Bobby. She was indeed my soulmate. As he says, I was lucky to share the years I had with her. As soon as we begin to socialize again, I want to host a memorial to celebrate Kathy‘s life. We need a fun loving legendary party that will honor her memory with the status I alone know she deserved.
While I am not religious in the sense of doctrinal teachings, I am spiritual. I know there is no power in the universe strong enough to extinguish the essence of such an exquisite soul. Kathy was super smart and did everything to the best of her ability. She was independent, creative, artistic, inquisitive, athletic, uninhibited, and beautiful. I never knew her to (before the dementia) act mean to anyone. Her better angels influenced and made me a different person. Once she imprinted me with her merry joyful contented amused outlook on life I innocently adopted that attitude. It was that affirmation of life you all sensed, that she passed on to everyone she met. Bobby felt, described, and captured that essence:
“Kathy's infectious laugh and her true love of life. She never met a stranger and always created warmth where there was cold . . . . light where there was dark . . . . and love where there was none.“
Her positive life force animated us all and will persist somehow, even if it is only in the ripples of the collective memories that those of us like you, who knew and loved her, will pass on through time to others. I hope to one day reunite with Kathy’s soul (happened before!) but if not, I’m satisfied I have experienced something close to Heaven with her here on earth already.
She was the best person I ever met. That will never change. It will never disappear. I adored her Andy Jones
Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home
Fresno, California
APRIL 6, 1952 – JANUARY 17, 2021
KATHY HAAR JONES was born April 6th, 1952 and passed on January 17th, 2021. I met her through mutual friends at Bullard.
My first direct encounter with Kathy was in March 1969 when Bob Cooper and I visited her home off Fruit and Shaw. She invited us in and played her Santa Cruz hippie music to us, Youngbloods Elephant Mountain, Neil Young Solo debut, and John Mayall Blues From Laurel Canyon. After a particularly intimate song “First Time Alone” she looked at me squarely with her flashing green eyes and asked, “Do you understand?” (See, I was a bit dull.) I did understand!! We dated that night — at the end of that incredible day I said I’d enjoy seeing her again.
When I kissed her at her door after our first date, I pressed hard to immediately secure another date, she half nodded, so I left unsure, nervous I was moving too fast. About one half hour later, around 11 pm, I heard a knock at my family’s house on San Bruno.... I answered the door and there she stood. A nearly 17 year old vision. I was surprised, a little scared I had pushed too hard, too quick, and she was there to cool me down, frightened off. I asked in deflection, “did you leave your purse in my car?” She just fixed me with a look and said “when?” I was (at barely 18 years old) confused, I stammered, “when ........ what?” — she, “you said you’d like to go out again, when?” So bold... I was swept away by how much she wanted to be with me, how honestly she exposed herself. It was so mutual, she won me in that moment. It was a turning point in my life and more importantly, I knew it. The next night was open and we were inseparable for the following four years.
We shared our college years full of unique experiences. She and I had a mutual love of music of every type, concerts, theater, four hour dinners at favorite continental restaurants, art, books, comedy, sports, nature, travel, family, name it. We wanted it all and got what we wanted. Nobody is perfect but she was perfect for me, the journey was our adventure.
After a long distance relationship during college, life’s complications intervened we went our different directions. She graduated FSU and became a waitress at Cask and Cleaver, Refectory, Vallis’, The Daily Planet, and more. I ran into her at every restaurant I ever took a date. Oddly she was my waitress at least three times — once at Vallis’ bringing a glass, pouring herself a healthy shot of our wine she sat and began catching up with me as my date watched on in horror. (last date with that lucky lady).
Kathy lived with Billy Reitz for a number of years through her twenties in the Tower and he has always had a special place in her heart. She got engaged to a different guy in her 30s whose name I have blocked out (not) inviting me to her engagement party! — astonished I went and congratulated her, wished her happiness.
That engagement fell apart (thankfully) and Kathy went to nursing school, got her RN and so about 17 years after we had broken up she and I both found ourselves single, golfed, dated, she married Andy, and settled into raising a family together.
There followed the 20 most satisfying years of our life. Every single day was a joy to be alive. The pleasure multiplied tenfold raising two wonderful boys, Samuel Casey and Henry Tyler. With them we summered, wintered, springed, and falled in Santa Cruz, skied, hiked, camped, kayaked, surfed, golfed, chased live music up and down the coast, traveled the west, Mexico, and the world. We lived our dreams.
She was first stricken with slight memory loss 10 years ago. She ignored it. Though she never was exactly the same Kathy I married again after 2010, she motored on despite her onset of Alzheimer’s. She became something even more amazing, a fearless uninhibited woman who acted not from reason but from the trusting core of an open hearted instinct. She traveled the world, pet a cobra, rode horses in Bhutan in the Himalayas, rode an elephant in India, rafted the Ganges, acting as lead designer/project manager building our cottage in Santa Cruz, designing and etching murals, making furniture, making and gifting ornaments, single-handed creating all our gardens. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Everything she put her hand to brought beauty into our lives. Everything. She approached perfect strangers and told them they were beautiful, that she loved — anything about them — their hair, clothes, smile, aura. It was delightful to ride in her wake, to see people respond to her freed soul with tentative but gratefully warm pleasure.
Yesterday our great friend Bobby Koligian penned some beautiful kind thoughts about Kathy. Thank you Bobby. She was indeed my soulmate. As he says, I was lucky to share the years I had with her. As soon as we begin to socialize again, I want to host a memorial to celebrate Kathy‘s life. We need a fun loving legendary party that will honor her memory with the status I alone know she deserved.
While I am not religious in the sense of doctrinal teachings, I am spiritual. I know there is no power in the universe strong enough to extinguish the essence of such an exquisite soul. Kathy was super smart and did everything to the best of her ability. She was independent, creative, artistic, inquisitive, athletic, uninhibited, and beautiful. I never knew her to (before the dementia) act mean to anyone. Her better angels influenced and made me a different person. Once she imprinted me with her merry joyful contented amused outlook on life I innocently adopted that attitude. It was that affirmation of life you all sensed, that she passed on to everyone she met. Bobby felt, described, and captured that essence:
“Kathy's infectious laugh and her true love of life. She never met a stranger and always created warmth where there was cold . . . . light where there was dark . . . . and love where there was none.“
Her positive life force animated us all and will persist somehow, even if it is only in the ripples of the collective memories that those of us like you, who knew and loved her, will pass on through time to others. I hope to one day reunite with Kathy’s soul (happened before!) but if not, I’m satisfied I have experienced something close to Heaven with her here on earth already.
She was the best person I ever met. That will never change. It will never disappear. I adored her Andy Jones
Whitehurst Sullivan Burns & Blair Funeral Home
Fresno, California
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