Obituary

Kathleen “Katy or Kathy” M Bigney, born in Flint, Michigan, on June 25,1935 went home to be with the Lord on May 1, 2024. She was in hospice care at Hospice House in Bellingham, Washington.

Kathleen went by two names: If you were related to her, you will probably have called her Kathy, but if you knew her through her teaching or after she retired in Washington State, you knew her as Katy.

Kathy never married and she had no children, but she was a loving sister and aunt. She leaves behind her sister, Rita (Mell), her brother, David, and her sister-in-law, Carol. She also leaves behind her six nephews Brian (Judi), Brad (Vicki), Brent (Autumn), Greg (Melanie), Nick (Katherine), and Walt (Sarah) and many grand, great-grand, and great-great-grand nieces and nephews.

After retirement, she would travel every summer to Michigan and Tennessee to visit her growing family of relatives. Kathy was preceded in death by her parents, Walter L.K. Bigney and Ethyl A. Bigney, her brother Walter, and her sister Marie.

Katy loved Washington and the beauty of the Mountains and the water. She has many good friends there. Especially Bruce and Marrianne who were such a godsend during the last two difficult years of her life.

Katy was a teacher all her working life. She taught in Washington and Hawaii and then spent many years teaching on Air Force bases throughout the world. Katy loved to travel, in addition to her travels overseas, she had visited almost all the 50 States of the United States.

She loved animals and almost always had a dog and or a cat or both living with her. She cared about all living creatures, even spiders. She was an environmentalist and was very concerned about protecting the space in which we live.