Kathleen Mae Tierney
Kathleen Mae Tierney age 94, of Osawatomie, KS formerly of Fairway, Kansas died Thursday, June 26, 2014, at Vintage Park of Osawatomie.
Kathleen was born of February 16, 1920 in rural Rutledge, Missouri near Millport, the eldest child of five to Cleveland Grover and Allie Mae (Westphal) Simpson.
She grew up on the Knox County area and attended high school at Edina High School in Edina, Missouri graduating in the class of 1937.
Kathleen moved to Kansas City after graduation at the age of seventeen to attend secretarial school. Her first fob was working for an insurance company adjuster. She later was a secretary for the North American Bomber Plant.
On March 14, 1942, she married George Charles Tierney at St. James Catholic Church in Kansas City, Missouri. That very day George received his draft notice and soon left for the military. Kathleen moved to Helena, Montana to be with him. While living in Montana she went to work on the Army post. Later they were transferred to Monterey, CA where she again worked on base in civilian personnel. After the war the returned to Kansas City and Kathleen went to work for the Social Security Administration in downtown Kansas City, MO as a receptionist.
Once Kathleen discovered she was going to be a mother she stopped working and enjoyed being a mother and homemaker. Her first born was Patricia “Patty” and later came Randall “Randy”. She loved the “mother role” as she called it and loved spending time at home with her husband and children.
Sadness fell upon the family when their son Randy died in a car accident on July 27, 1978 at the age of eighteen. And then once again on February 3, 1981 when her husband George died, they had been married for thirty-nine years. Kathleen had strong faith and the courage to go on. She continued to live in her home in Fairway, Kansas where she had lived for over fifty years, until she decided to move to Vintage Park in Osawatomie to be closer to her daughter and her only two grandchildren Gretchen and Patrick.
Kathleen was a former member of the St. Agnes Catholic Church in Roeland Park where she did volunteer work and helped with all the mailings stuffing and addressing envelopes. She collected “Hummel figurines” and enjoyed crafts and sewing. She was an avid “walker” and was a permanent fixture at the Mission Shopping Mail where she liked to walk and at the Hen House grocery store in Fairway, where they even asked her to be a customer greeter. She loved to talk to anyone and everyone and many will miss her smile.
She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her son, two brothers; Richard N. Simpson and Leonard L. Simpson and two sisters: Madelene R. Woodward and Lenore H. Simpson.
She is survived by her daughter Patty and husband Bob Burns of Fontana, KS and two grandchildren Gretchen Burns and Patrick Burns.
Funeral Services were 10:30 a.m. Monday, June 30, 2014, at St. Philip Neri Church in Osawatomie, KS burial was in the Resurrection Cemetery in Lenexa, KS.
Memorials are to St. Philip Neri Church Building Fund or St. Agnes Catholic Church of Roeland Park, KS and may be sent in care of Eddy-Birchard Funeral Home PO Box 430, Osawatomie, KS 66064.
