Kathryn was a kind soul. She was the daughter of Stanley and Helen Kava and the eldest sister of Josephine and Louise. Born and raised in Wyandotte, Michigan, she attended St. Stanislaus and Mount Carmel Catholic schools (both in Wyandotte.) She attended dance school in her youth. She was a switchboard telephone operator in the 1960s. She married James E. Richards on Oct. 10, 1964. She had three children: James Joseph, Mary Helen, and Raymond Ronald. After the death of her parents, she made the sacrifice of moving from her beautiful brick home to her parents' old home and cared for her youngest sister Louise until she was 21. She loved Janis Joplin and Mama Cass as singers. She also loved flowers and worked at Ray Hunter's Nursery. And she was much loved by everyone around her: friends, neighbors, and relatives. She was an incredibly strong person as I remember her thawing frozen pipes under the house while she was pregnant and suffering through years of gallbladder disease attacks. A job loss took her and her family to Illinois in 1984 where she made many friends. Kathryn adored her children. She also cared for an elderly woman during night shifts. She was the ultimate care giver...always putting others before herself. Kathryn worried through the Persian Gulf War while her son Jim was on active duty. Her health deteriorated from congestive heart disease that plagued her most of her adult life and she died at the young age of 57. When I think of her life, it's not the number of days you live BUT the life you live in your number of days. She made an enormous impact on my life.