San Mateo-San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Meeks, Kathleen Ann November 14, 1953 - February 9, 2009
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Mark Meeks countrytom2002@yahoo.com February 21, 2012, 7:09 pm

Source: Personal Knowledge
Author: Mark Meeks

Karen Lee Burkdall was born 14 Nov 1953 in San Mateo, CA to Richard Lewis
Burkdall and Joyce Leone Lindahl.  She was the youngest of two in the family. 
As a teenager she started to have problems with her weight.  In high school she
stood 5'10" and weighed 185, her lightest when she topped out.
She graduated from Hillsdale High School in San Mateo in 1971, then went to
college: first to Chico State University, then transferred her credits to BYU in
Provo, UT, after becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.  There she majored in Child Development and Family Relations.  In 1975
she received her Bachelors Degree in that field.
It was during her college career that she legally changed her name from Karen
Lee to Kathleen Ann.
After returning to the Bay Area, she pursued many jobs, and quite a few were not
in her field of expertise.  She finally ended up working for an import/export
business.  Even though her local congregation was in San Mateo, she started to
go to a Singles Ward in San Francisco.  She met her future husband (me) in choir
practice.  Someone made a comment I laughed about and she turned around to see
who was laughing.  Not long after that we started dating, and after a while we
decided to get married.  I never did popped the question, but, since we loved
each other, I figured, like Spock's father Sarek on Star Trek, that it was the
logical thing to do.  Kathy and I were sealed for time and for all eternity at
the Oakland Temple on 12 Oct 1985.  Four months later we discovered that she was
expecting. The first and second trimesters were extremely tough on her.  The OB
said she had gestational diabetes and ketones in her urine, and so we had to
test her on both.  Three weeks before the baby was to be born, the doctor saw
salt in her urine and figured that she needed a c-section.  We checked her in to
the hospital, made her feel comfortable, but not for long.  I went home to take
care of some things, then went back to find her being taken to the delivery
room.  Things got further complicated when they discovered the baby was in
breech, so they carefully took it out and cleaned out all the gunk in the
openings.  It was a beautiful baby girl.  We named her Kelly Joy Meeks.
Kathy didn't gain much when she had Kelly, and she actually lost more weight
than she gained having her.
The three of us lived in an apartment house down one of the main streets of San
Mateo.  We lived down the street from the fairgrounds, and the race track which
no longer stands.  We continued to live there until Kathy's mother was on her
last legs, so we moved to the house.  While there we took care of her mother
when the day nurse wasn't there.  Her mother died in 2005, a week before my
daughter, who had since changed her name to Amanda Katelyn, gave birth to a baby
boy.
It was during the time we were living in an apartment that the diabetes
returned, type II, and at first she was put on medication, but that didn't
change her eating habits.  it got worse, so the doctor also put her on insulin.  
A year before we moved from San Mateo to Utah, she was having serious problems
with her mobility, so much so that in July 2008 she had to resign from her job.
 She was there for 27 years.  After the move her mobility became worse, and she
spent the first month and a half in Utah in assisted care facilities, having
actually been in the house a total of 5 weeks.  Her last day at the house we
were discussing various things when she went into convulsions.  The paramedics
were called and did all sorts of diagnostic tests.  They found her blood sugar
to be over 600!  She was taken to Utah Valley Medical Center, where they
recovered her enough to try to get her to another home.  The previous home
couldn't take her, so they called others, finally finding one near my parents'
place.  She passed on 4 days later, on 9 Feb 2009.  She was buried in
Springville, UT on 14 Feb 2009.  Her family and her friends, especially her
friends in California, miss her.
Besides her husband and father, Kathy is survived by her brother Donald Burkdall
and his wife Tony, her nieces Catherine and Riohard, daughter Amanda and her
sons Ryan and Skyler, nieces Taryn Alexander, Nicholle and Stefanie Pacheco, and
nephew Josh Curtis. Besides her mother, she was preceded in death my Amanda's
son Tyler.

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