J. Kathleen “Kit” Stewart
March 19, 1938 ~ December 1, 2015
No services will be held for Sequim resident J. Kathleen “Kit” Steward who died on December 1, 2015 in Sequim, Washington.
Ms. Stewart was born March 19, 1938 in Seattle, Washington to Dorothy I. (Hodges) and John Wm. Alexander Ritchie.
Ms. Stewart married first, Harry F. “Bo” McKee on November 10, 1960 in Seattle, Washington. They lived at 22 different addresses in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington in the first 12 years of marriage, then divorced.
She married second, Charles George Stewart on December 23, 1976 in Juneau Alaska. He died while building their retirement home in Hyder, Alaska August 13, 1995.
Ms. Stewart attended University of Washington; studied Accounting at University of Hawaii, Manoa; received a Bachelors of Arts, History from University of Alaska, Juneau; and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage.
When she found out she was too short to be either a U.S. Marine or stewardess, she found her first job as a bookkeeping machine operator for Peoples National Bank. Later she operated an early IBM system for the VA Hospital in Seattle before moving to Juneau, Alaska to work for the Forest Service and Bureau of Public Roads.
In 1963 she became an Accountant for the State of Alaska and, with the exception of two years in Tacoma while her first husband went to Chef School and four years in Hawaii where she worked for Duty Free Shoppers, Ltd. , she maintained that profession through being Chief Finance Officer for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation all during the Alaska Pipeline construction.
After the pipeline was finished, Ms. Stewart took early retirement, went to work at the University of Alaska, Juneau Library while gaining her BA Magna Cum Laude, and MAT, then had a second career as an adult educator.
In 1990 she and her second husband retired and started RVing. In 1992 they drove an International Travelall from Juneau to Boston to Newfoundland and then back across the top of Canada following the most northerly roads, even if they were not on the map. In 1993 they drove from the most westerly drivable point in the Western Hemisphere (Anchor Point, Alaska) to the most northerly point (north dock, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska) which included an armed guard in their Travelall while on the oil field.
By 1995 they had started building a summer home in Hyder, Alaska when Mr. Stewart died suddenly of natural causes. Ms. Stewart couldn’t face shoveling snow by herself, so she moved to Sequim where she remained – whenever she was not traveling.
Ms. Stewart was a very active volunteer most of her life. She started as a VA Hospital volunteer in 1957; became scorekeeper for CYO league and Babe Ruth league baseball and ANB/ANS, Bill Ray, Tides, Juneau Adult City League and Lions Club Gold Medal Tournament basketball scorekeeper; Neighborhood Youth Corps Supervisor; ALMA resource; Gastineau Channel Genealogical Society; held many offices in NSDAR; Literacy tutor at the Alaska State Prison, Juneau; Friends of the Library; Community Ed. Council; helped start the Glacier Sams Visitor Information Center in Juneau; was awarded Juneau adult volunteer of the year 1991, worked Bingo for the Sequim Valley Lions Club, gave workshops for Clallam County Genealogical Society, and for several years was active in International Footprint Association and VFW Ladies Auxiliary.
Her hobbies were cats, jigsaw puzzles, Robbie Knievel jumps, books, genealogy and traveling.
Since she moved to Sequim Ms. Stewart has spent at least a quarter of her time elsewhere, including designing her own trips and traveling alone to Samarkand Angkor Wat, Vladivostok, Manchu Picchu, Ggantija Gozo, Zambia, Dubai, Turkey, Signapore, Bangkok, Egypt, Stromboli, Crete, the Antartica, and most of Europe. She has been in every state, territory and province of Canada and the United States as well as a good part of Mexico; frequently drove to Las Vegas or Alaska; and one year left Sequim on Labor Day, drove to Orlando, Florida and returned at Halloween.
Ms. Stewart is survived by her niece Lisa Ritchie and nephew John S. Ritchie of Walla Walla, Washington; step- son Bryan G. Stewart of Redondo Beach, California; nieces; nephews; their children; and literally thousands of 1st to 7th cousins.
She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, brothers John D. Ritchie and Bruce Ritchie, and cats Silky, Amanda, King, Hillary, Foxy and Charlie among others.
Memorial contributions may be made to VFW, Lions, or the library or genealogical society of your choice.
