Kathleen Burns Maher

When Kay Maher's son, Creighton, went off to fight in Vietnam in 1966, she had a shrine to the Virgin Mary built in the woods on her family's suburban Portland property. Every day, she would walk through a field and into the woods to pray quietly for her sons safe return. Her son returned unscathed a year later.

When Kay Maher's husband, Ken, was stricken with stomach cancer in 1991 and told he had just weeks to live, she reassured her children and grandchildren that their father and grandfather would be fine. Her husband beat the disease.

When she herself was brought down by a mas­sive heart attack in 2001, requiring 24-hour nurs­ing care for more than a year, she rehabilitated herself and learned to walk again, to the amaze­ment of her family and doctors. Her will power and courage prevailed.

"She lived her life with such grace and with a pos­itive optimism that things would work out for the best," said another son, Michael Maher of Seattle.

Surrounded by her children andd husband, Kay Maher died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 26, 2008, at the family summer home on Lake Mayfield near Mossyrock, Wash. She was 85.

She was born April 16, 1922, in Portland, the last of Robert T. and Margaret Burns' eight chil­dren. Her Scotch-Irish father was a candy maker and owned the Spokane Candy Co. Her Irish mother oversaw the family from their Kelly Avenue home in Southwest Portland.

Kay's early years were spent mingling with her siblings and friends, exploring her Italian-Jewish-Irish neigh­borhood, bicycling to Lake Oswego, and swim­ming in the Willamette River. It also was'an upbringing marked by a hard­scramble existence due to the Great Depression. But with the character she would exhibit in later years, Kay quietly persevered.

In 1940, she graduated from Commerce High School (now Cleveland High School), where she was vice president of the student body. A year later, while swinging to the big band sounds of Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet and the Dorsey Brothers, she met her future husband, Kenneth
K. Maher, at a University of Portland dance. They were married on Oct. 2, 1943, in Portland.

Between 1961 and 1973, Kay was her hus­band's secretary and aide while he served in the Oregon State Legislature. She met and knew numerous figures from the political world, including President John E Kennedy, Oregon Governor (and later U.S. senator) Mark Hatfield, Oregon Governor Tom McCall, Oregon Governor Vic Atiyeh and Portland Mayor Mildred Schwab. She was a member of Immaculate Heart and St. Charles parishes between 1943 and 1948, St. Clare parish in Portland between 1949 and 1975, and St. Yves parish at Silver Creek, Wash., from 1973 to 2008.

Family was central. Her first child, Patricia, was born in 1944. Creighton, Patrick, Richard, Stephen, Michael and Kimberly followed between 1946 and 1964. In 1970, Kay and Ken adopted Anthony "Tony" Bradley of Los Angeles, who was being passed from relative to relative as a young boy after his mother died. A few years later, the Maher family welcomed Guillermo Chamorro into their home after Chamorro's father was killed in Nicaragua.

From the late 1940s until the mid-1970s, the family lived on 10 acres below Mount Sylvania in suburban Southwest Portland. It was a perfect place for her rambunctious brood to run with abandon, build forts and trails, and excel in numerous sports. The Lake Mayfield summer home and its grounds-turned by Kay and her husband and children into an arboretum of native Plants and trees-were one of the joys of her life.

Kay was proud of her children's accomplish­ments and the diversity of their interests and pursuits. Her openmindedness and support allowed her children to live their lives as they saw fit. She helped raise-among other things and at various times in their lives-an artist, a painter, a doctor, a child psychologist, a chief executive officer, a veteran, a business owner, a marathon director, a poet, a writer, and a mother of triplets.

"My mom was extremely nonjudgmental," said another son, Stephen Maher of Wenatchee, Wash. "Her Catholic faith was her guiding light, but she never flaunted it and she accepted every­one, regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity, looks or money. "She was extraordinary in how she embraced people and spread her love. She was extremely kind but it was never done with any fanfare. It just hap­pened. Looking back, I can't recall one time when she ever said anything negative about anyone."