Mary K. Williams

Born: October 06, 1921

Died: March 30, 2015

Mary Catherine Barnett Williams, known as Mary K., died at her home Monday, March 30, 2015 at the age of 93.

Mass of Christian Burial will be held Monday, April 6, 2015 at 2:30 p.m. at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Gettysburg with Father Jerry Kopel officiating. Burial of the cremains will be held at a later date. A reception will follow in the church fellowship hall with ice cream and oreos served in her honor.

Born Oct. 6, 1921 to George Richard and Ruth Theresa (Bauch) Barnett in Sioux Falls, SD, Mary K. was the third of 10 children born to the Barnett family. She was raised in Sioux Falls where she graduated with honors from Cathedral High School in 1939. She was Prefect of the Sodality her senior year and was involved in numerous activities, including music, theatre, and cheerleading. She attended the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN on an academic scholarship until her marriage to Terrence M. Williams, her neighbor from Sioux Falls, on Feb. 5, 1942.

Her husband left to serve as a P38 fighter pilot in World War II, and Mary K. was at home with their baby, Terry Jr. At the war’s end in 1945 they moved to Gettysburg and later made their home on the family farm south of town. There they raised five boys and, in later years, two daughters.

Mary K. was active in her community as a den mother for the Boy Scouts, a Girl Scout leader, and was the Girl Scout Neighborhood Chairman. She was a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church where she directed the choir for many years. Throughout the years she was a member of the Women’s Literary Society, Hospital Auxiliary, American Legion Auxiliary, VFW Auxiliary, and Mother’s Club. She played the part of Mrs. Santa at community events, was Mardi Gras Queen in 1969, and was the Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year. She earned her Golden Eaglet in Girl Scouts, and was honored with numerous community accolades.

She loved singing, made amazing whole-wheat bread, and thought costumes were a great way to liven a party.

Survivors include her sons Terrence M. (Judy) of Rapid City, Michael (Ann) of Lemmon, Bruce (Peggy) of Gettysburg, Richard “Bill” (Emily) of Aberdeen, Jay (Carol) of Yankton, and daughters Kara of Taos, NM, and Molly (Harry McRoberts) of Gettysburg; 27 grandchildren; a gaggle of great-grandchildren; brothers Dr. Lou (Maggie) Barnett and Don (Marilyn) Barnett of Sioux Falls; sisters-in-law Kay Barnett of Terre Haute, IN, and Liz Williams Bogue of Rapid City, SD.

She was preceded in death by her husband in 1998, her brother Richard in infancy, her sister Sheila at age two, her brothers Bob and Jack, sisters Barb, Patricia, and Jane, and grandson Dan.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Gettysburg Hospital Auxiliary, 606 E Garfield, Gettysburg, SD 57442 or Gettysburg Community Foundation, PO Box 33, Gettysburg, SD 57442.

Luce Funeral Home of Gettysburg has been entrusted with Mary K.'s arrangements.

Saturday was a big day for me. Eric and I drove down to Sakatah State Park to go running on the trail. We did 8 miles. Yes I said 8 miles! It is a major thing for me. I have a 15K coming up in 3 weeks and to be honest I’ve been very scared of it. 9.3 miles is a long way to go. I’ve done a couple 7 mile runs before but they were all very hard. I thought to myself after the last 7 mile run, “How the heck am I going to do 2.34 more miles?” Now I can say I’ve done 8 miles and only have to worry about 1.34 miles. I can walk that…

Left in the woods…

The run was hard. I was bitter and ornery for the first 2 miles. Eric even made a comment about it. Eric is a saint for putting up with me. I eventually got my mind in the right spot. It helps when you think that if I keep treating him this way, he will sprint to the car and leave me there I the middle of the woods with no cell phone and no money. Not that he would actually do that but the threat is real, he had the car keys and can run faster than me!

Mile 3 was a breeze!

I had planned to turn around at the 2.5 mile mark but I didn’t look at my watch (Eric told me to stop looking at it) and before too long we were at 3 miles. I have to say mile 3 went by pretty fast. After we turned around, I drank some water and munched on a few tootsie rolls. I’m trying to figure out what will work to fuel me on the long distance runs. I hate the Gu stuff they try pushing so I’m looking for an alternative that doesn’t make me want to puke. Animal crackers worked but they make my mouth dry so my water was gone before the end of the run. Salted nut rolls work too but again I drink a lot of water with them. I’m not sure about tootsie rolls. They taste good and are easy to carry but they sticky on the teeth and require water, but not nearly as much as the other two options. So my quest for long run fuel continues.

Eric said what?

At mile 4, Eric actually said let’s walk for a bit. I know shocking…Eric said “walk.” This coming from somebody who used to say that walking was bad (and that is why he didn’t finish the TC Marathon many moons ago because Felicia made him walk.)  We walked a short bit, had another tootsie roll and then continued running. We meet some girls who were also running 8 miles. They were doing the Galoway, run-walk method.

I didn’t quit!

Around mile 6 we walked again for a bit and drank water and ate tootsie rolls. Even though my back was killing me, and we were close to the car, I pressed on. I didn’t quit like I could have. I gave Eric the water belt to take the weight off my back. Part of my problem with longer runs is I need water and I have to carry it with me. I felt much better when I got the weigh off my back. We ran to mile 7 (it was faster than mile 6!). My toes were tingly, numb and burning all at the same time during the entire mile 7. I’m not sure but I think my nerves in my toes were mad at me. I loosened the laces on my shoes and my toes stopped hurting. We turned around and headed down the home stretch. I walked a lot of the last mile but I still ran more than walked so that is good. Eric ran all of the last mile…he is so awesome. But I did it. I ran 8 miles!

To put that into prospective (for me), that is like running from my parent’s house in Independence to Arcadia. Or Mankato to DJ’s house in Rapidan or Rapid City to Blackhawk. For me that is amazing. For others that is nothing. But I don’t care about the others! I only care about me. Yes, I’m selfish!

In other news…

I’ve been a little lax on the blog lately. I haven’t really had much to say. I know shocking!

Last week was pretty boring. I think the most exciting thing was not having band on Thursday. It was cancelled last minute so Eric and I pigged out at Boston Market. And did I run on my night off?? Nope!

Let see, I went swimming on Wednesday. It had been a while. But of course when I get excited to swim again, the pool is closed down this week for Spring/Easter break. Darn it! Hopefully I will still be excited next week when it is open again. The only bad thing is it moves to the other pool in town. I like the East Jr. High pool better. Even though it is older and smaller, I just like it better. I think part of the problem with the West Jr. High pool is they always have swim team practice at the same time and I have to deal with that.

Friday after work we went to the KC fish fry with Greg and Celeste. It was delicious of course but a bit spendy, $12 each!?! It was cheaper to pig out at Boston Market!

Maps and Splits

This is my first shot at this distance and my time is slow but I’ll get faster!

 

Well I added a new race distance for me. I have done a 7K, 10K and 11K but never an 8K. Eric said we need to find a 9K now. Anyways, this past weekend we completed the Irish Run 8K (basically 5 miles). This was the first year of the run so there wasn’t much swag. We got a nice long sleeve shirt and plain old bib. Of course there was also free beer but no medal. I like my hardware!

The Start

It was a small race, only 196 8K runners and 145 5K runners so I didn’t have the usually crowd to push me like the bigger races which could be part of the reason my splits were terrible. We started running up an overpass. Not cool! But immediately we got to run downhill so that was good. My pace was really fast that first mile at 10:43. I haven’t run that fast in a while. But the rest of the race was crap. Eric was irritated with me because I slowed down “too much.” He killed me in that first mile. I wasn’t happy with him for most of this run. At one point I told he we shouldn’t run together anymore. Yes I want to get faster Eric, but I don’t want try it in a race at a distance I haven’t done before and I don’t want to do it on the first mile of a longer race. I want to finish the race standing up. We can work on speed later on training runs when it doesn’t matter if you kill me the first couple miles.  But I had a race to finish. ARGH!

The Middle

It was an out and back course (I hate!) so the view wasn’t that exciting.  The race was also down a straight street which is even more boring as there is no were curves. You can see in a distance where the turnaround is and you just run towards that. I didn’t have any issues along the way (like wanting to turn around at the 5K turn). I kept going with a smile.  We actually got to run around a block so that was exciting. I like that much better than a turnaround (even if the block was on cobblestone, ick!) You don’t lose too much momentum like you do on a regular turnaround. I told Eric at the 2.5 mile mark that I wanted to finish in 57 minutes.

The End

Like I said this was a small race and it was very lonely after the 5K turnaround point. Eric kept wanting to catch people ahead of us that I knew I couldn’t do but because they were really far ahead of us. I know I shouldn’t say words like can’t or couldn’t but I’m a realist, I know what I can and can’t do and catching somebody that is running faster than me and is over a half a mile in front of me is not going to happen. I’m not a sprinter! Surprisingly one of the people started walking. Finally I could pass somebody. But he played the game of “can’t let the fat girl pass me” and would take off running faster as soon as I caught up to him. It pissed me off. But I kept going and eventually I passed him and beat him but 5 seconds (take that skinny, 26 year old Alex from Minneapolis!) What is pathetic (for him) is my last mile was the slowest and that is the mile I passed him! I also finished at exactly 57 minutes. I even beat Eric by 1 second. Take that Eric! Ha!

I think Eric’s competitiveness has finally rubbed off on me.  Watch out Eric, don’t piss me off because I might just run faster than you…I know that isn’t going to really happen but one can dream!

Photos, Splits and a Map

  

   

 

Hair and Makeup

Two words I don’t discuss much but that was what was in store for us girls on Saturday morning. Our day started pretty early. All the bridesmaids, Danielle and Nancy had our hair done at the salon. Some of us also had make up done…none of us really wear makeup. I would normally do my own as I actually know how to do it but alas I forgot my make up at home. I love what they did with my hair. I really didn’t have any ideas what I wanted and when the stylist said braid, I was a little scared. But it turned out great. My only complaint is it felt like it was falling out all day. I think I had the least amount of bobby pins at 25.

After hair and makeup we drove down to the church. We were way ahead of schedule so we just hung out in the basement, eating left over food from the rehearsal dinner…yum bacon! I ate a ton of food, I’m surprised my dress fit! Danielle put her own makeup on. Dawn, Bradley’s mom, bought her the Bare Minerals starter kit and taught her how to do it. She even labeled all the bags as step 1, step 2, etc.

Pre-wedding Pictures

Around noon the photographers showed up and started snapping pictures of us getting ready for the day. You know the type of pictures. Before long it was time to put on the dresses. I knew this dress was going to be on for 12 hours so I waited to the last possible moment to put it on. It fit great. We all liked beautiful. It was time for the real pictures. Danielle was first (because Bradley didn’t want to see her before the wedding). Our session was almost an hour and then it was Bradley’s turn. I took a lot of pictures during that two hours. There were some cute ones and some that were lame. After his session, I headed back downstairs to wait until it was time to walk up the aisle.

The Ceremony

The ceremony was very nice and short. Dylan and I were the first ones to walk in. I did my best to smile! We had to stand up front for the whole ceremony. The pastor was good. He got a few math jokes in too. The exchanged the vows, the rings, light the unity candle and voila they were married. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Dobie.

After Wedding Photos

We finished up all the wedding photos after the ceremony. It didn’t take nearly as long as the pre wedding photos. We headed to Mankato for the reception.

The Reception and Dance

We came into the ballroom in a grand style. Dylan took my bouquet and I took his jacket and he sashayed his way down the aisle. It is the best we could think of. Nick wheeled Ashley in on a dolly. And Bradley and Danielle danced in and he picked her up. It was cool. We ate and then we danced. Of course since it was pi day, we had pi for desert.

We danced the usual polkas, hooky poky, chicken dance. It was a lot of dancing. We partied until 11-11:30pm, cleaned up and headed back to the hotel. I think we got in a little after midnight. It was a long, exhausting but exciting day.

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES

On Friday, after my 7 mile run!, we drove down to Mankato to start this wedding weekend. First thing we meet the family at Olive Garden. It was delicious but hard not being able to have meat…no Chicken Parmesan for me. :(  After lunch, we headed to MSU ballroom to decorate for the reception. It was fun setting up the decorations and meeting more of Bradley’s family.

Next up was the rehearsal at the church. Most of us got there without any problems…some got lost though. LOL! The rehearsal was temporarily moved up to 6pm but because of the people who got lost, it was pushed back to the original 6:30. The rehearsal was pretty easy. I’ve been in enough of these weddings that I got it down.

The rehearsal dinner consisted for breakfast food items. Of course, bacon was fried up and boy did it smell good, but I was a good Catholic girl and resisted. I made the French toast. I messed up the batter…I was trying to get the vanilla out of the container and it would come out so I squeezed the bottle and ended up with too much vanilla. People apparently didn’t notice because they said it was good…or they were just being nice to me. I’ll never know. It was an exhausting day and most of us were ready for bed at 9. Except for the partiers…of course, I am not one of those.

The first day of the wedding weekend was a success.

I thought to myself late last year that maybe I should do less races in 2015. I felt pretty burnt out at times in 2014 and I spent a bundle on races. I thought to only do one race a month. 12 races in one year is a good thing to shoot for. Well that hasn’t happened.

I have an addiction…

Hello, my name is Kim, and I have running races addiction.

It could be worse, I could be drinking or smoking or gambling. But I spend just as much as I could on those addictions. I admit it, I want the swag, I want the bling, I want the satisfaction of crossing the finish line! My addiction is stronger now than ever. Over the weekend I registered for 4 races. Yes 4! I had originally thought I’d register for one every month on a payday. Well that didn’t happen. This weekend I registered us for Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon Relay (I originally planned on doing the whole thing but I’m not there yet), Valleyfair’s Run and Ride Route 76 10K, Summer Breeze 10K (in London!), and the Torchlight 5K. I spent more money than I really should have but I’m so excited and at times nervous.

But I’m not done yet. There is still a Duathlon, another half marathon relay and a marathon relay I want to register for. And all of those races happen before June!

One race a month? Ha! Try two or more!

So including the Hot Dash this weekend, I will have two or more races in March, April, May and July, September and October. I have already registered for 3 races in October. This is a bit ridiculous. My whole “one-race-a-month” philosophy just got thrown out the window!

Training

Now that it has decided to warm up to perfect running weather, I’m hoping to catch up on my miles. January and February were dismal at best. Only cranking out 35 miles each month is not great. I was over 100 miles at this point last year. I’m such a failure this year. But March is here and the weather has been perfect. I covered just over 9 miles this weekend with a 5K race on Saturday and a nice long 6 mile run yesterday. It was slow but it felt good…except for my stupid knee. The forecast for the next week is awesome with 50-60s and no precipitation! I have to get my training because there are a lot of races ahead and some are long…like the 15K in 40 days. Oh boy!  The longest I have run this year is 6…I need to get there!

Hooray for above freezing temps!

The Start

There were over 1,600 people running the 5K. I was a sea of people. Many dressed up like lumberjacks with the beards and flannel (think Paul Bunyan). Some ran with axes…not real ones of course. We started in the back (like always) I really felt like I was standing out in my bright pink! Oh well. The weather was warmish. It was in the upper 30s but the wind was a bit crisp.

Not much to say about the start, there wasn’t a banner overhead, just a flag thingy, I think that is a bit silly since this was a big race but whatever. There were a ton of people and I kept getting cut off in my pursuit to keep up with Eric. It was annoying! The first mile included the hilly bridge. I crossed this bridge twice last year for races and I had to walk up each time. The Get Lucky 7K (it happened at mile 3) and Suds Run 5K (going opposite direction at mile 2 and I had bronchitis). But this time I ran up it and I was happy. It helps that we ran up it during first mile. The water stop was at the mile 1 marker. I think it was there because it was convenient for the 10 miler race. I thought about skipping it but I thought twice about it and decided a little water might be good. I finished mile 1 at 11:05

The Middle

The second mile was along the river. It was a nice stretch of openness, as in the crowed thinned a bit so I wasn’t getting cut off. My second mile was my fastest at 10:57. This is very unusual for my mile 2 to be the fastest. Miles 1 or 3 are generally faster. I think if we didn’t have the hilly bridge in mile 1, I would have been much faster than 11:05.

The Finish

I told Eric at the end of mile 2 that he didn’t have to hang back for me. I was sick and tired of him sprinting ahead of me and then constantly turn his head to see if I was still behind him. It drove me crazy. So at mile 2 he took off…I was relieved! I loved the last mile, even if it was my slowest because it was across the Stone Arch Bridge. Many of my runs have gone across the iconic Minneapolis Bridge. Like I said, my last mile was the slowest but I don’t think that had anything to do with Eric leaving me. I walked about 10 seconds at the 2 ½ mile mark before I ran hard to the finish. The last bit I ran at 10:40 so that bit of walking was good. If you look at my splits you will see an 8 second split. I accidently hit the “split” button on my watch, not my “end” button. Oops!

Only two weeks until my next run, the O’Gara’s Irish 8K Run (5 miles) in St. Paul. I’m excited to go longer than a 5K again…but also nervous!

Pictures, Splits and Map

  

Here is the video from my concert on Sunday. Unfortunately the video stopped during the last song. That is both good and bad. It is bad because I love the song and now I don't get to hear it. But it is good because for some reason we had a meltdown in the middle of the piece and it didn't sound the best. I told Dean, my fellow trombone player and the person responsible for titling the concert "Winter Meltdown" that the word "Meltdown" is now banned from use in future concerts...it was like an omen. :)

This weekend was quite busy. After a 5 mile run (32 laps) at the Eden Prairie High School Activity Center on Saturday, we showered and headed down the Mankato to help DJ build a closet…from scratch.

We met DJ at Menard’s to buy supplies. We really didn’t spend much time planning it out…which in hindsight probably wasn’t the greatest idea. We got some wood, power tools and other supplies and crammed them into our vehicles and went to the house. Thankfully, our windshield didn’t break this time (a time before, Eric and Bradley were transporting PCV pipe and they put it thorough our windshield). The power tools needed to be charged so we went back the Mankato for some dinner at Ethan’s favorite Chinese place, Yu’s. It was good, the egg rolls were excellent!

After dinner we started building. We made two boxes out 4 inch boards. We set them up in the room and after further analysis we decided to make a box out of the big boards too. Now if I would have been thinking earlier, we should have just made one box out 24” boards…but I wasn’t thinking straight. Anyways, we got almost the entire closet done on Sunday before we had to go home. It was a lot of work, but I think it looks pretty good. I felt like I was channeling my father. Now granted he should have come to be sooner while we were doing our initial analysis but hey he must have been sleeping. LOL!

Here are some pictures of the process and the finished product. Not bad for a first time.

We stopped at Danielle and Bradley’s to drop off flower for the wedding. I discovered I made 6 extra boutonnieres then were needed. Apparently math isn’t my strong suit. LOL! Danielle is so excited for the wedding. We talked through what was left on her to-do list. We did some planning and finally we had to go. I had a concert last night so we needed to get home and shower.

The concert was ok, not our best…especially the last song, Abram’s Pursuit. It makes me sad because we sounded so good on Thursday and we were a complete muddle at the concert. It makes me mad because I love that song. Eric recorded the concert but the video recorder wasn’t fully charged and it died 2 minutes into the last song. I’m not sure if Eric got the part that was a complete F*&C UP or not. As I told my friend, Jenny, “Eric only got the first 2 minutes of the song. I’m not sure if he got the meltdown…LOL!” The reason it that is funny is because our concert title was “Winter Meltdown.” I will find out tonight when I process the video and put it online.  A nice thing we did for the concert is put a single rose on Mary’s chair. If you didn’t read my blog earlier this month, Mary is our 1st chair flute player. She had been with the band since the 80s was an amazing player. She died unexpectedly a couple weeks ago. It was a way for us to honor her.

Runs: 11

Miles: 35.1
Races: 1 (Valentine’s Day 5K 35:24)

Outdoors: 3
Indoors: 8

Longest: 5 miles
Average Pace: 11:52

February wasn’t very successful. My average pace was 6 seconds faster than January...big whoop! I lacked motivation and I constantly had various aches and pains, especially my Achilles tendon. I had the flu which took me out for 5 days including a whole weekend. I do my longer runs on Saturdays so that really hurt my miles. I spent that entire Saturday on the couch…really! I only mustered out 11 runs and almost all were inside. February was a cold month with many days below zero and lots and lots of wind so very negative wind chills…I know excuses!

I had one race this month, the Valentine’s Day 5K. My time was ok, a minute faster than January’s race. That isn’t bad since it was below zero for the start and a lot of windy after the second mile. Again, my weight hasn’t come off this month so I’m still luging around an extra 9 pounds of fat. I lost 5 pounds in 2 days with the flu but eventually gained that all back…plus 2 more. It has been very frustrating year in the weight (lack of loss) category.

I know I said I hate January last month but I think February can be thrown into that “hate” category too. I’m glad I discovered the indoor track at Eden Prairie High School…doing 32 laps to get to 5 miles is so much easier on the mind than 70 laps at the Community Center in Shakopee! I’m hoping for more spring like temps in March so I can get outside.

Trophies for February

Most of the trophies for February are your standard ones you see every month including the new for 2015, the Supersonic. I also got the Chocolate Heart for running on Valentine’s Day. Isn't that sweet!