Kathleen "Kay" Mortensen

Kathleen "Kay" Mary Thoden was born on March 25, 1933 in Denver, CO to Reginald and Irene Thoden. Grandpa Thoden didn't like the thought of owing money to a bank so the family never owned their own home. Grandma Thoden was a foster mother (mostly for infants and toddlers) for Catholic Charities and Kay and her sister Joni would come home from school and yet another crib would be set up in the dining room. Kay attended both public and parochial schools, graduating from Cathedral in 1951. She went to work for the telephone company after graduation.

She attended a wedding with her best friend Phyllis who was a bridesmaid at our Uncle Kenny and Aunt Eileen's wedding where she first met her husband to be, Donald Dean Mortensen. They were married on June 23, 1956. Their four children Kathleen, Cynthia, Steven and Karen kept her very busy.

Her faith was important to her. She was so excited when Notre Dame opened their grade school so her kids could get a Catholic education. She and Don prayed the rosary together at the dining room table every night. She crafted beautiful rosaries by hand.  She also loved going to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Littleton, CO for Mass.

She was a very gifted artist and painted amazing pictures first in oil and then in watercolor which is a very difficult medium to work with. Each of her children inherited some of that artistic talent. Cindy was a seamstress as evidenced by her creating her wedding gown from three separate patterns and making beautiful Halloween costumes for her kids. Steve's landscape paintings are beautiful but he also does incredible charcoal drawings of faces that look just like black and white photographs. Kathy's creations are in counted cross stitch. Karen is a scrapbooker extraordinaire.

She did extensive genealogy research on her paternal and maternal family tree. This was decades before Ancestry.com so she had to go to the Mormon Church Library to go through files and write letters to possible relatives to get information from them. She always got excited when a new census would be released (every 10 years) so she could gather even more information.

She went on pilgrimages with Don to Portugal, Spain, and Medugorje. Then there were pilgrimages to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Ireland with Karen. She especially loved the trip to Ireland, as her paternal grandmother Katie came to the United States from Leitrim, Ireland at the age of 18, and she returned with Don to show him the beautiful countryside and people. She and Dad also visited Alaska and Hawaii.

She didn't have to travel across the ocean. Some of her favorite trips were to Estes Park, CO; weekend visits to Steve's cabin in Como, CO; trips to Grand Junction to see Kenny and Eileen; and summer family picnics or sledding and ice skating with a chili dinner to follow at Jerry Nichol's cabin.

Kay passed away on October 11, 2023 at Morningstar Memory Care Unit just short of 10 months to the day of Dad's passing on December 15, 2022. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sister Joan Baumann, her daughter Cynthia Kissell, her twin great granddaughters Stacy Ann and Taylor Marie Janssen and her beloved husband Don.

She is survived by children Kathleen (Larry), Steven and Karen (John). She was so proud of her eight grandchildren Michael (Emily), Melissa (Chris), Amanda (Matt), Caleb (Brieana), Therese (Drew), Nicholas (Veronica), Clare (Aaron) and Anthony.   The sixteen great-grandchildren always put a smile on her face.

Recitation of the Rosary Thursday, November 2, 2023, 10:30 am, followed by Funeral Mass at 11:00 am, both at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church, 3900 Pierce St., Wheat Ridge, CO 80033. Interment Fort Logan National Cemetery, 1:00 pm.