Katherine Downs Foster

Katherine (Kathy) Downs Foster passed away at home in Easton, MD, on January 24th, with her two children by her side. Born in Hammond, IN, on the 5th of July 1945, she grew up in Arlington, VA. She was a proud Badger, having graduated from the University of Wisconsin with an English degree that reinforced the lifetime love of literature instilled by her poetry-reciting relatives. She went to Georgetown Law School, wandered Europe with her first husband (William/Bill Morrison) during her hippie days, and had two children once back and living in Catonsville. She then raised them on her own alongside probably a few too many pets in Northern Virginia.

After practicing law at Bean, Kinney, & Korman, she quit to focus more on being a parent, an experience she characterized as full of love, adventure, and being ever alert. She moved the kids out to then-rural Loudoun County. Living in Bluemont inspired her love of the Appalachian Trail and sharing trail magic with thru hikers. She worked at Freddie Mac and worked up from secretarial positions to become an ISS executive writing communications for that branch of the corporation. She met her second husband, Chet, who was an economist there. He helped her beat advanced breast cancer, and they retired to build a beautiful home in Texas’ Hill Country. She drove her John Deere, raised Lowline Angus cattle, and gleefully killed the thistle and mesquite trying to invade her hayfields. Deadly ranch dog Jessi kept critters at bay while Chet cared for the horses. Once widowed, Kathy settled near her sister on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and chose a place with a back wall of windows looking out over another hayfield. She watched birds while her blue-tick beagle Declan gazed lovingly at her all the day long. She fought cancer hard, for years, when it recurred after an almost twenty-year remission. She loved bridge and good songwriters like John Prine, after all, she was an old woman named after her mother. Kathy also always loved a good storm, and an epic one came the night this beloved woman died.

Kathy leaves behind her devastated children, Anthony Morrison and his wife Kim Collins, and Heather Morrison and her John Fischer. Two sisters, Judy Tinelli and Tracy Kyriakeas, and brothers-in-law Archie and Takis survive her. She is also grieved by her nieces and nephews Amy Squitieri and husband Alex, Sofia Lamon and husband Chris, Mark Downs and wife Marianne, George Kyriakeas, and Brian Downs and wife Tess. Her grand-nieces Elise, Katherine, Claire, and Anna and grand-nephew Ryan loved their GAK (Great Aunt Kathy). She is survived by stepdaughters Robin Foster and Lynn Margheim, step-granddaughter Hannah Lazarte, Willie Nelson, and more loved ones she adopted along the way. Beloved for her sharp wit, immense generosity, and tendency to focus all her care on others, she will be missed every day. Her mother Katherine (Kay) Downs, father Richard (Dick) Downs, Brother James (Jim) and sister-in-law Adrienne Downs, nephew Malcolm (Mike) Ross and his father Alexander (Sandy), and husband Chester (Chet) Cristy Foster preceded her in death. She volunteered for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and helped a literacy program in Fredericksburg, TX, by sitting down to consistently read with a few children. In lieu of flowers, donating to similar organizations would have cheered her. The family will have a celebration of her life in March, which she chose a really good playlist for.