Mary Kathleen 'Kate' Sullivan, 71, Formerly of Bedford

Obituary courtesy of Mark Sullivan

WINCHESTER – A funeral service will be held Friday, April 29, at 10 a.m. at Costello Funeral Home, 177 Washington St., Winchester, for Mary Kathleen "Kate" Sullivan, formerly of Bedford, Winchester and Medford, who died April 23 surrounded by her family at her home in Rockport. She was 71 and had suffered from cancer.

Kate was the second of seven Sullivan sisters and brothers and, the rest would agree, one of a kind. She was the adventurous one, the glamorous one, the emotional one, the caring one.

She put herself through nursing school, served as an Air Force nurse in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, and was pictured in a news photo cradling a Vietnamese child while President Lyndon Johnson toured a hospital ward in Cam Ranh Bay.

She was the blonde who drove an Austin Healey Sprite in British Racing Green and flew the world as a Pan Am stewardess; who married a fighter pilot and, stationed along the Moselle, taught herself to converse in German; who was a widow at 30 with a baby seat in a Jaguar XKE.

She remarried and had four children in all, immersing herself in their lives: in family game nights of Pictionary and Balderdash following Thanksgiving dinners at her home in Bedford; in ocean cottages at Wingaersheek and Hampton Beach filled with laughter over steamers; and at family camp every summer on Moose Pond in Maine.

She had ancient corn and cactus plants that were older than some of her children, and crystals on her shelves, and trees in her rooms that reached to the ceiling. She captured spiders and put them out of the house. She placed protective "lights" around people. She converted a little old fisherman's house in Rockport into a sun-filled and airy space, with furnishings collected over the years around the world, and of course, plants that brought the outside in.

She cried easily, yet was remarkably cool in crisis. If she had a fault, if a fault it was, it was that she cared so deeply, about people, and about the missions on their behalf she set herself to. Given a cause she put herself to it single-mindedly.

When her mother, Josephine, in her late 90s, needed help so she could remain living in her Winchester home -- a beloved antique house that had been Kate's in the 1970s -- Kate and her sister, Clare, moved in, caring for their mother and enabling her to live out her days in her own house, surrounded by loved ones. Kate took great pride in making that possible.

Her sister, Clare, a Rockport neighbor, said: "Kate was my sister and my dear friend. We laughed and cried together, shared happiness and grief, protected and supported and trusted each other.....and thought we had plenty of time. I'll always carry Kate in my heart."

Her sister, Jody, recalled her love of tuna subs with everything, and fried clams from Christie's and the Causeway, and yard sales and antiquing. "She shopped all year for gifts for her family. Above all she loved being a mother. I will miss talking on the phone with her for hours and each of us saying the same thing at the same time."

Her brother, Christopher, recalled working as an orderly on her floor one night when Kate was a nurse at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. "She was so intense about caring for all the patients, so professional, so competent," he said. "I foolishly tried to meet her stride for stride down the hall and could barely keep up." He also recalled her frustration studying for her nursing boards, with their implicit expectations that the only correct options involved deferring to a doctor. "Then she would describe the correct procedure used in Vietnam to save a life," he said.

Mary Kathleen Sullivan was born in Medford on Nov. 15, 1944, the daughter of Josephine A. and Albert J. Sullivan. She was raised in that city, attending St. Joseph's School. She graduated from Matignon High School in Cambridge in 1962 and Mount Auburn Hospital Nursing School in 1965. As a second lieutenant in the US Air Force she served as a nurse in Vietnam from February 1966 to April 1968.

In 1969 she married Captain Henry Lewis Keeting, a US Air Force jet fighter pilot who served several tours of duty in Vietnam and died in a flight training accident in 1974. They had one child, Zachary Lewis Keeting. In 1978, she married M. David Ullman, a scientist. They had three children, Emily Kate Ullman, Hannah Kathleen Welsh and Sarah Joanne Ullman. The marriage ended in divorce, but they remained friends.

She is survived by son Zachary Keeting and his wife, Marie-France Lemay, of New Haven, Conn.; daughter Emily Ullman and her husband, Allen Vietzke, of Salem; daughter Hannah Welsh and her husband, Tom Welsh, of Center Conway, N.H.; and daughter Sarah Ullman and her husband, Chris Wall, of Portland, Maine.

She also leaves sister Jody Thrasher of Newton; brother Albert Sullivan Jr. and wife Anne of Framingham; brother David Sullivan and wife Rose of Boston; brother Christopher and wife, Liza, of Tallahassee, Fla., sister Clare Sullivan of Rockport; and brother Mark Sullivan and wife Lisa of Ashland. She was the grandmother of Samuel and Adeline Kate Vietzke and Grace Hannah and Annabelle Mary Welsh. She also leaves many nieces and nephews.

Relatives and friends are invited to gather at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, April 29, at Costello Funeral Home, 177 Washington St., Winchester. The funeral service is to be held at 10 a.m., followed by interment in Wildwood Cemetery, Winchester.

Memorial donations may be made to Care Dimensions (https://www.caredimensions.org), the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (https://www.cff.org), or Veterans for Peace (http://www.veteransforpeace.org).