Kathryn Maloney Youngerman

1929 - 2025

Kathryn Maloney Youngerman

January 26, 1929 - July 30, 2025

Boise, Idaho - Kathryn Louise Maloney Youngerman was born in Northfield, Vermont on January 26, 1929 to Floyd A. and Freda E. (Wheeler/Riley) Maloney. She died on July 30, 2025.

Kay grew up in a loving family on a farm in Berlin, VT with her older brother, Bill, and her three younger siblings Bob, Betty, and John as well as many foster children who came and lived with the family. She attended a one room school house just up Cox Brook Road and was the first person in her family to graduate from high school (Northfield High School, class of 1947). Kay attended and, in 1950, graduated from the Mary Fletcher School of Nursing as a Registered Nurse. Her first nursing job was at the Green Mountain Clinic in Northfield where she met a handsome Norwich University cadet who delivered laundry. They fell in love and she and Stephenson Searles Youngerman Jr. were married on June 9, 1951, a union that lasted 69 years.

Steve graduated from Norwich the day after their wedding. He and Kay moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina as Steve was in the U.S. Army and stationed at Fort Bragg. While living in North Carolina, Kay was a hospital nurse as well as a new mother to Stephanie and Sydney. When Steve was discharged, they moved to Connecticut, Northfield and Cabot, VT, Alturas, CA and eventually, in 1957, to Hyde Park, VT where they lived for six years. While in Hyde Park, Steve III was born and Kay worked at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, VT. In the summers, she vaccinated children against polio all over the State of Vermont as a mobile vaccination clinic nurse.

In 1963 the family moved to Strafford, VT. Kay worked as a private duty nurse and for two summers as the nurse at Camp Wihakowi in Northfield. In 1967, the family moved to Michigan. Kay was a public health nurse in Flint and a hospital nurse for the Veterans Administration in Ann Arbor. In 1969 the family moved to Boise, ID and Kay began a 28 year career with the State of Idaho Health and Welfare Department. She found her true calling as a public health nurse and especially enjoyed the time she spent working with new mothers and their babies. Wherever Steve got a new job, Kay transferred to that location and worked for offices in Boise, St. Marie's, Twin Falls, and Nampa, ID before their final move back to Boise in 1989. She retired in 1997 as a nursing home examiner.

Above all, Kay was devoted to her family and loved her children unconditionally. She and Steve enjoyed having large, family dinners in their home at every holiday. No matter where they lived, they created a welcoming, safe, warm, and sustaining place and made lifelong friends. Kay and Steve hosted their niece, Lucinda Powers (Walker) when she was a page in the Idaho Senate, two Rotary foreign exchange students from Australia, as well as any number of friends their children brought home, many of whom stayed for a few months to a year.

Kay loved coffee, chocolate, and apricot pie. She was a great cook and she gave her children free rein in the kitchen so that they could learn to cook too. When living in Flint, MI she signed the girls and herself up for a cake decorating class and really got into it, buying all of the supplies to create beautiful cakes. She always had a batch of chocolate chip, snickerdoodle or ginger cookies in the cookie jar and her brownies were famous. She was a 4-H volunteer and taught her daughters as well as the neighborhood girls how to sew.

Kay laughed easily, had a great sense of humor, and was fun to be with. She loved to play board games, but Scrabble was her favorite. She couldn't resist a crossword puzzle or an Avon catalog. She grew dahlias, iris, and Christmas cactus that were the envy of every neighborhood she lived in. During her retirement, Kay was active in PEO hosting many luncheons, working at and donating her homemade jams and jellies to the PEO Christmas bazaar and enjoying the camaraderie of her PEO sisters.

Snow skiing was her favorite outdoor sport. For as long as they lived in the Treasure Valley, Steve and Kay had season passes at Bogus Basin and purchased them for their children and grandchildren. In her retirement years, Kay honed her skiing skills, participating in many Prime Timer slalom events and coming home with more than one medal. She and Steve spent many years basking in the sun in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in January and June, canoeing at Wade Lake, MT in August, and attending high school, college and family reunions in Vermont in October.

Kay is survived by her daughters Stephanie (Robert Jahn) and Sydney (Steven Cole), her son Steve (Julie Herndon), her grandchildren Riley (Sara Spencer), Kyle, Gretchen, and Stevie Youngerman, Morgan (Shawn) Keating, and Hadley (Josh) Goff, her great grandchildren Kennedy, Cason, Paige, Boden, and Jordi, her sister, Elizabeth Maloney Powers, and numerous nieces, nephews, and second cousins. She was preceded in death by her husband, Stephenson, her half sister, Ruth Riley, her three brothers, William, Robert, and John Maloney and great granddaughter, Dani. A huge thank you goes out to the staff at CornerStone Senior Living: Memory Care who took great care of "Nurse Kay" for the past seven and a half years and to Keystone Hospice who provided additional care for nearly five years. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Cottey College: P.E.O. Foundation, Giving Opportunities - Cottey College or the Idaho Foodbank: Donate - The Idaho Foodbank. There will be a memorial service at the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery at a later date.