Obituaries

DeForest-

Kathryn Woestendiek Scepanski passed away on June 27, 2024 at The Marquardt Health Center in Watertown, Wisconsin, after years of struggle with primary progressive MS, complicated by a rare and strange sort of relapsing/remitting MS that placed her in a category with only about 5% of MS patients.

Kathryn was what you might call an “unconventional” person. Friends and family alike enjoyed her joie de vivre, her sense of humor, her curiosity, her creativity, her faith, and her presence. Her whole life was a quest for joy both in her own being and the planting of seeds of her joy in others.

Kathryn's life was filled with persons, places, and things from all over the United States and Europe. She was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; grew up through middle school on Long Island, New York; graduated from Lamar High School in Houston, Texas. She worked in Texas, Maryland, California, and North Carolina. She lived with her first husband, Jim Hughes, in Germany and Colorado, where their son, Christopher, was born. After she retired, she moved to Wisconsin with her second husband, John, where she and John lived the last couple of decades of Kathryn’s life.

Kathryn and John met on an internet list-serv operated by their mutual church denomination, the Moravian Church. They got to know each other as two of the more active participants in the list-serv conversations. At that time, Kathryn lived in Winston-Salem and John lived in Wisconsin. They began a telephone relationship, and after a few years they finally met in person at one of Kathryn’s brothers’ wedding near Chicago. Kathryn and John decided to get married; however, complications arose to frustrate their settling on a date for the wedding. One day during that time, while driving to work, John had a sort of a vision or revelation -- a communication from God or whatever: “Wait until the azaleas bloom.” John shared his revelation with Kathryn, and Kathryn said that the azaleas bloom in April in North Carolina. So, they set the date for April 5th. Believe it or not, April 5th was the first day of blossoms for those North Carolina azaleas.

Over the course of her professional life, Kathryn was a newspaper reporter, a freelance writer, a roving singer and songwriter, a civil rights activist, and a public television host. Kathryn followed in the footsteps of her family: her father, Bill Woestendiek, was a well-known newspaper managing editor at various newspapers all over the United States; her mother was a reporter and feature article writer for newspapers and magazines; her brother John was a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Baltimore Sun; and her brother Ted made his living in the business end of printed news media.

You can find some of Kathryn’s original work on YouTube by searching for her name. Especially, you will want to get acquainted with her one-and-only “rap” song (she categorized it as that as sort-of a joke), “Living in the Present,” recorded while sitting in “her” willow tree on the shores of Lake Mendota’s Tenney Park in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kathryn had a special affection for the African-American people who drifted in and out of her life over the years and for those special relationships that she sought out. That interest placed her in the middle of some serious civil rights activity in her home state of North Carolina.

Kathryn suffered during the last years of her life with full body paralysis from her MS. The lesions had spread from top to bottom of her central nervous system, brain, and spinal cord. Her and John’s faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit sustained her. She was passionate in her faith and actively participated in her beloved Moravian Church.

Kathryn is survived by her husband, John; her son, Christopher Hughes and brother, Ted (James Wong) Woestendiek. She was preceded in death by her parents and her brother, John Woestendiek.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, July 15, 2024 at the Christian Faith Moravian Church, 805 East Holum Street, DeForest. Visitation will be held from 9:00 a.m. until the time of service on Monday at the church.

To view and sign this guestbook, please visit: www.ryanfuneralservice.com.