On Mother’s Day, Kathryn “Kat” Carr finally burned through the last of her nine lives and claimed her rightful place as De Facto Empress of the hell she lived in and its many outlying colonies (i.e. Portages Lakes, Barberton, Aberdeen, Windsor, etc.) Sincerely, when she shows up, I suggest you all look busy and if she happens to be wearing leather pants and carrying a bottle of Jack, you might want to consider running.

Kat Carr was a “crazy woman”. She never backed down for a challenge; she never walked away from a fight and she never once apologized for anything because she had no regrets. Every thought she ever had came straight out of her mouth and every person she ever met never forgot her; she was larger than her life, and her life was a blockbuster movie just waiting to be written.

Though her spine was made of steel, her heart was soft and she was a sucker for a sob story. She never turned away anyone in need – not anyone, no matter how many times she got burned. Over the years, she gave shelter to the homeless, allowed entire families to sleep on her floor and took in numerous children who had no one to care for them; as well as raising four of her own, entirely on her own. There was nothing you couldn’t tell her. There was nothing you could say that would shock or offend her, or that she wouldn’t understand. She was the one person in the world you could always talk to when you couldn’t talk to anyone else. No matter how bad it was, she could always make you feel better; because no matter what you said, she always had a story that completely topped yours.

Kat was preceded in death by her parents, James and Genevieve Price; her sister, Heidi Price; her husbands, George Adams and Stephen Speer; and her son, Stephen Carr; she will be forever missed by her husband, Earl Freeman; her ex-husband, Wayne Botez; her children, Nicole (Brian) Esker, George (Sarah) Adams and Jessica (Michael) Maguire; her grandchildren, Alex, Debra, Sabrina, Jacob, Shane and Michael, as well as The Eiseman Family, her many neighbors and friends at the Lakeside Trailer Park, any many, many others including; the fine people at Anheuser-Busch, Phillip-Morris and the Ohio State Lottery.

Following Kat’s request, cremation has taken place. The family will receive friends on Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Campfield-Hickman-Collier Funeral Home, 566 W. Park Ave., Barberton 44203.

Everyone dies, but not everyone lives. Mom lived. She lived hard, but she lived full. So, “Don’t cry because it’s over….. Smile because it happened!” Light your smoke and raise your glass and remember the last thing she said to you that made you laugh so hard you thought you were going to wet yourself; but this time don’t hold back. Because she never did……