Katherine "Kitty" O'Connor

1932 - 2021

Katherine "Kitty" O'Connor

Mahopac - Katherine "Kitty" O'Connor, a nearly 60-year Mahopac resident, Putnam County Democratic leader and longtime BOCES nursing instructor, died Jan. 20 at her home on Lake Mahopac. She was 88.

Katherine moved to Mahopac in 1963, where she raised her five children. She took her expertise and training as a registered nurse working in New York City to become one of the original operating room nurses at Mahopac Hospital. The small local hospital was located on Lake Mahopac in what is now the administrative offices for the Mahopac Central School District and was the precursor to the current Putnam Hospital on Stoneleigh Avenue in Carmel, where Katherine also worked for several years.

She served her community in multiple ways during her lifetime. She helped found the Putnam County League of Women Voters in the late 1960s, served on the Carmel Planning Board, including as chairwoman, during the 1970s and '80s, and was a Putnam County Democratic committeewoman and former chairwoman of the Carmel Democratic Committee.

She was a proud Irish-American who worked diligently with the Emerald Association of Putnam County each year to execute one of her favorite traditions, the annual Northern Westchester-Putnam St. Patrick's Day Parade in Mahopac. She was named Emerald of the Year by the Association in 2012. She was an observant Catholic who attended Mass at both St. John the Evangelist Church in Mahopac and St. James the Apostle Church in Carmel.

Katherine may have made her most lasting impression as a nursing instructor at Putnam-Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Over the course of her 32-year teaching career, first at the former BOCES campus in Carmel and then at the current campus in Yorktown, she educated several generations of practical nurses, who went on to work at hospitals and health care facilities in Putnam and Westchester counties and in Danbury, Conn. It was common for Katherine to run into these former pupils at the grocery store or while out to dinner over the years and many would later help assist in her care when she was elderly.

She was a lifelong traveler and avid skier, who belonged to the Danbury Ski Club for many years. She relished skiing the European Alps, touring the American Rockies by train and sailing down the Danube River. Perhaps her most cherished place was Lake Mahopac; she lived on the lake for some 28 years, swimming, boating and entertaining family and friends.

She was born Feb. 22, 1932 in the Bronx to Katherine (Farrell) and Thomas Manning. She attended St. Thomas Aquinas High School and went on to graduate with both her bachelor's degree and her registered nursing degree from Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in Manhattan. One of her first nursing jobs was at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest — and one of the busiest — hospitals in America. During the beginning of her BOCES tenure, Katherine returned to school to earn her master's in teaching from SUNY New Paltz.

On Aug. 11, 1955, she married Edward O'Connor in the Bronx. The marriage ended in 1974, but the two remained friends in the decades that followed. In fact, when Katherine underwent knee replacement surgery in her 70s, Edward came down from his home in the Adirondacks to help her recover post-procedure.

She is survived by her five children, Eleanor Labieniec of Carmel; Alexander (Susan) O'Connor of Mahopac; Andrew (Donna) O'Connor and Daniel (Kathy) O'Connor, both of Brewster; Stephen (Susan Landry) O'Connor of Holmes and 10 beloved grandchildren: William and Sarah O'Connor; Danielle, Drew and Devin O'Connor; Larkin and Keegan O'Connor and Mannion, Madeline and Harper Landry O'Connor. Her sister, Eleanor Kieliszek, and three brothers, William, Thomas and Patrick Manning, predeceased her.

There will be a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. Saturday, February 6 at St. John the Evangelist Church, 221 E. Lake Boulevard. Family and friends are making donations to the Emerald Association of Putnam County, P.O. Box 141, Brewster, NY 10509 and the Putnam Hospital Foundation, 670 Stoneleigh Ave., Carmel, NY 10512.