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BEVERLY JEAN CUTRI KISH

Beverly Jean Cutri Kish of Orlando, Florida, passed away and was released from the prison of Alzheimers on 27 April 2021. She was born on 17 September 1939 in Steubenville, Ohio, the daughter of Thomas Anthony and Lucy Gladys Goldsmith Cutri. Beverly was a 1957 graduate of Mingo High School and later attended Mount Wachusett Community College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

She married Michael Kish in 1957 and they were together for 64 interesting years. She is survived by her husband; her daughters Theresa Marie Acevedo (Robert) of Orlando, Florida; Katherine Anne Prior (Harry) of Summerville, South Carolina; and Monika Christine Austin (Larry) of Dallas, Texas; eight granddaughters and many great grandchildren; a sister, Karen Leslie Munoz (George); a brother, Thomas Anthony Cutri; her sister and brother by choice, Joyce and James Yasui; her son by choice, Daryl James Yasui (Maria). In addition to her parents, she was predeceased by two brothers, James Franklin Cutri (Patricia) and Frank Thomas Cutri (Victoria), and two sisters, Carmella Joan Ferguson (Wayne) and Deborah Lynn Hunter (Timothy).

Being the wife of an Army officer comes with many official and unofficial duties, all of which Beverly was happy to accept and always performed admirably. She received many written commendations from Army leadership for her volunteer work with young wives and children who were new to the Army. She personally established and conducted programs to assist young wives with complex military-related financial and medical issues. She organized and chaperoned a popular entertainment program for events such as the Framingham Dinner Theater and the Boston Pops for young soldiers who had never had these opportunities before. Beverly also organized periodic parties on base for the young soldiers and their families who were assigned to her husband’s Company. There were more than 250 students assigned to the Company and most of them attended the parties, which had food, live music, and dancing. She initiated the parties to help relieve the stress on the soldiers, who were students at the demanding Army Intelligence School. The size of the parties was a challenge and had never been done there before. Beverly did all of the planning, coordinated the logistical support, and recruited volunteers from her student wives to assist. The Base Commander and the School Commandant thought it was a wonderful contribution to the welfare of the troops. And then, in her spare time, she also worked as a volunteer at the Post Thrift Shop. It was a loss to the local volunteer organizations whenever Beverly left for a new location, but she always accepted it as a new challenge. With all of this, she was still able to raise three wonderful daughters, sometimes by herself because of her husband’s long and frequent deployments. Sometimes, for long periods, she had to do the duties of both a mother and a father. The evidence of what she accomplished is that she raised three beautiful and loving daugthers.

Beverly had a love affair with fine art. She acquired many beautiful paintings, prints, sculptures, and fine antique pieces. She especially enjoyed, and collected, nineteenth century European paintings and prints and unique Japanese wood block prints and bronze and jade sculptures. She received great pleasure from these works of art and felt it was important to pass them on for the pleasure and education of future generations of her family. Because she was able to travel extensively, she had the great good fortune of visiting many world – famous art museums, especially in Europe, where she enjoyed many long hours. Beverly also loved the theater and took every opportunity to attend a live performance. When living in Baltimore, she often went to off-Broadway shows at the famous Morris A. Mechanic Theater. In Seattle she attended many performances of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. She also enjoyed many performances at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. During frequent trips to London, she spent as much time in the Theater District as she did in the National Gallery of Art. But at the end of the day, to satisfy another interest, she was always able to find a special pub or cafe. Beverly always tried to live life to the fullest.

She was a devoted student of family history, and she spent many days researching and documenting her family genealogy. She had a special interest in her Italian heritage and was a member of the national organization, The Sons of Italy. She documented her English history back to the 1700s in England and Ireland and her Italian heritage to the early 1800s in Calabria and Southern Italy. This was something she felt she owed to others. She believed it was important to pass on the family history to her children, grandchildren, and her cousins, and now it will always be available to them.

Beverly was always ready for a new travel adventure. She travelled often within the United States, and as often as she could to Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, British Columbia and Saint Martin in the Caribbean. She especially loved Vancouver Island, where she went at least once a month for years because she lived only a quick ferry ride away from Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In addition to living for several years in Germany and Britain, she made countless trips to Europe to visit family and friends, and just because. In Germany she lived in a small German town among the locals, rather than on the military base. She frequently shopped in the local bakeries, vegetable markets, grocers, and butcher shops with the German wives, and you could not tell them apart. She liked having her daughters playing on the playgrounds and going to school together with the German children.

Partly due to military duties, she happily travelled through almost all the United States and lived in many of them, including living in Los Angeles for several years — of necessity. But as always, she adapted quickly. She bought a beautiful little sports car, a red MGB convertible, her gift to herself that was always special to her. Then when she drove around Los Angeles you might have mistaken her for a native.

She somehow found time to take care of herself. She spent many long hours in the gym and it showed. She was a dedicated weight lifter and participated in and often won the weekly weight lifting competitions. Beverly was a strong swimmer and loved to swim in the Pacific Ocean during her trips to Hawaii, especially in Hanauma Bay. An avid hiker, with Joyce and Jim and her husband she hiked most of the saltwater trails around Puget Sound and many of the challenging and beautiful high trails in the Cascade Mountains. Beverly loved to fish for anything that was in season. She caught many trout in the rivers of the Olympic Peninsula. She would often go to the nearby Elwha River early in the morning to fish and would be home by noon with fresh trout for lunch. She sometimes had to fish from a canoe on larger lakes, but she knew how to handle a canoe and was not deterred by wind or rain. She could paddle for miles in any weather to get to a favorite fishing spot. In addition to fishing for trout in the many lakes and rivers near Puget Sound, she also fished the open Pacific Ocean where she joyfully caught many large salmon and ling cod.

Beverly enjoyed clam digging parties with Joyce and Jim and friends along the shores of Puget Sound, especially on Camano Island. She loved to forage for mushrooms on the Olympic Peninsula and in the Cascade Mountains with her husband, Joyce and Jim, and other family members and friends. She always turned the plentiful chanterelle and oyster mushrooms into delicious meals. She was an outstanding cook and especially enjoyed cooking different ethnic foods. Her own recipes for Italian sauce and meatballs and for Italian wedding soup are still used and enjoyed by family and friends. As soon as she was married, she quickly learned to cook special dishes from her husband’s Eastern European heritage, such as Slovak noodle and dumpling soup and cabbage rolls. These recipes have always been popular, including with her friends and her Seattle Asian American family. Her children and grandchildren still use them.

Beverly loved to have parties and could create a party for dozens of people in just hours. While living in Colorado Springs she organized toboggan parties in the winter, which were held on a nearby mountain. The parties always had ample food and drink, and included a barbeque grill. There was also a fire pit to warm you after an exciting ride down hill and a long walk back. She never tended the fire pit or pulled the toboggan back up the mountain — she “left that to the men,” but she was a good supervisor. There were frequent gatherings with friends at her home and at some of her favorite restaurants. But in addition, it could be a party for a birthday, an anniversary, Christmas, the Super Bowl, or just because. Beverly’s parties for the hydroplane races at her home on Lake Washington in Seattle, where the deck overlooked the entire race course, were an amazing all-day affair. The parties lasted into the evenings, with a hundred or more people coming and going all day. They came not only to see the races and the Blue Angels perform, but because it was another of Beverly’s parties. There was great food and drinks for everyone, young and old alike. Having so many of her friends at her home always made Beverly very happy. Daryl James said that home is where the heart is and that she made everyone she met feel at home. She was a great hostess and her many friends were always happy to get her phone call for the next party.

Because Beverly’s personality was warm, loving, and larger than life, those who met her felt forunate to be a part of her life. To her friends she was the best of friends; to her children, she was the best mother; to her childrens’s friends, she was a second mother; to her grandchildren’s friends and the children of the neighborhood, she was embraced as another grandmother. For many years she had a large drawer just inside the garage door which she kept full of a great variety of candy for the many neighborhood children. They only needed their mother’s permission to go to the drawer. The children came and went all day, every day, and never worried about taking too much candy, because they knew the drawer would be full again the next morning.

Beverly was fortunate to have had so many opportunities for world travel, but her heart was always in Seattle and the beautiful Pacific Northwest, with the large snow-capped mountains and beautiful saltwater sunsets that she loved. She was especially fond of the Skagit Valley, which was close to where she lived for years. In the Fall, with Joyce and Jim, she loved watching the thousands of migrating snow geese arriving from Russia, and watching them depart again in the Spring. She also enjoyed the Skagit Valley in the Spring when it was covered with hundreds of acres of tulips and daffodils. She enjoyed those flowers almost as much as she loved the same flowers that she grew in her own yard.

On and off for fifty years, Beverly and her husband lived within the wonderful Asian American community in Seattle. Daryl James always introduced Beverly to his friends as his “other Mother.” That was very special to her. To her daughters and granddaughters, Joyce and Jim were always Aunty Joyce and Uncle Jimmy, and they always will be.

IN ALL HER LIFE, BEVERLY WAS ALWAYS HAPPIEST AT THIS TIME, IN THIS PLACE.

At some future date, Beverly and her husband will be interred together at Arlington National Cemetery.