Carole Marie O'Neill

Kerry O’Neill passed away peacefully, August 26th.

She loved flowers, children, theatre, family and friends.

She was born (1938, Carole Marie King) and grew up on Chicago’s Westside, until she met Bill in a high school play. Carole had become a parochial school teacher, before they married in 1960 and began a series of moves while Bill pursued training in chemistry. Three children were born before he completed his PhD at the University of Illinois in 1966. They moved to the San Francisco area and Kerry resumed elementary-school teaching in Tiburon and Los Altos, CA. She became a receptionist at the Palo Alto Clinic, while Daniel, Dawn and Laura earned degrees at Berkeley and UCLA in the ‘80s. The family traveled quite a bit, especially enjoying camping in the Sierras, Rockies and along the West Coast. Kerry and Bill moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington in 1993.

Kerry cultivated all sorts of flowers: particularly rhododendrons, iris, daffodils, peonies and chrysanthemums. She was an enthusiastic reader, especially of mysteries, and participant in book and garden clubs. She switched allegiance from Bill Walsh’s 49ers to Pete Carroll’s Seahawks when we changed states, and remained staunch through great and dismal seasons. Regular as the seasons, over 40+ years, were joyful rendezvous with her sisters, nieces and daughters at Las Vegas. She’s survived by two sisters, both still living near Chicago, Jeanne Kirk and Kathy Danno, and was surrounded at death by: her partner in life for 61 years, her son, Daniel from Baltimore, and married daughters, Dawn of Park City Utah, and Laura, who lives on Bainbridge Island. She had three grandchildren, and a great-grandchild is waiting in the wings, to be produced this year by Holly and Mike Cushing of Park City.

A celebration of Kerry’s life will be held this Fall – watch for particulars here.

Arrangements are entrusted to the Cook Family Funeral Home of Bainbridge Island, WA.