Kathy Schofield Zdeb

Chatham, N.Y. — Kathy Schofield Zdeb, beloved wife, mother, sister, and friend, left the planet (in her words) on December 12, 2025. She had just turned 78.

The youngest of six siblings (five sisters and one brother), Kathy was born into a large Irish family in 1947. After spending her early years in Manhasset, Long Island, she decamped in 1965 for Good Counsel College in White Plains, where she majored in Spanish and was asked to dance at a co-ed mixer by Mike Zdeb, a Utica native and Manhattan College student.

Kathy and Mike married on July 19, 1969, the same day Apollo 11 entered lunar orbit and a day before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Over the next 56 years she would serve as the straight man to Mike’s one-man comedy routine, whose audience and sometimes participants expanded in 1976 and 1982 with the arrival of daughters Sara and Jessica. Kathy was the center of the Zdeb family throughout.

A lifelong writer and her family’s resident grammar cop, Kathy broke into journalism in 1972, after earning her Master’s degree at the State University of New York at Albany. She first joined the staff of the Washington Park Spirit, Albany’s underground newspaper, and later became a writer and editor for the Troy, New York-based Times Record, where she was lauded for her coverage of topics ranging from single parenthood to lead poisoning.

Kathy took a break from full-time writing when Sara was born, devoting the next 17 years to parenting. She fervently believed every mother is a working mother. After Jessica was born Kathy spent several years as a freelance writer before returning to full-time work in 1993, when she began what would become a 17-year career in communications at Wadsworth Center, the public health laboratory at the New York State Department of Health.

Over the years Kathy developed and refined a passion for cooking and, especially, for baking. Her desserts were legendary. They ranged from the humble (raspberry creme pie, mint meringues, yellow birthday cake) to the sophisticated (hazelnut torte, meyer lemon poundcake, a decadent queen of sheba) to the showstoppers (Betty Rosbottom’s famous spiced chocolate torte wrapped in chocolate ribbons). Cakes, cookies, tarts, and galettes were her love language, bestowed on friends and family at holidays, dinner parties, and just because.

Kathy was diagnosed in 2019 with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare blood cancer. She faced her diagnosis with a combination of acceptance and bravery, resolving to do as much as she could for as long as she could. Even as clinical trials failed, medications lost effectiveness, and transfusions became more frequent, she swam regularly, baked gourmet desserts, attended the symphony at her beloved Tanglewood, volunteered as a writer for the Spencertown Academy Arts Center, and enjoyed life in Columbia County, where she relocated ten years ago with Mike.

Kathy is survived by her husband Mike of Chatham; daughter and son-in-law Sara Zdeb and Mark Nevitt of Atlanta, Georgia; daughter and son-in-law Jessica Zdeb and Tim Ledlie of Portland, Oregon; sisters Julie Schofield of Coxsackie, New York, Francine Nietubicz of Cockeysville, Maryland, and Muriel Zimmer of Windsor, Nova Scotia; numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews in the extended Fannon family; and many dear friends in Albany, Chatham, and beyond.

The Zdeb family thanks the providers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and St. Peter’s Health Partners who treated Kathy in recent years, with a special thanks to the medical oncology infusion staff at St. Peter’s Hospital. In lieu of flowers, the Zdebs encourage you to donate blood and ask that donations be sent in Kathy’s memory to Spencertown Academy Arts Center (https://spencertownacademy.org/) or the MDS Foundation (https://www.mds-foundation.org/).