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Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns

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Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns

Birth	:	4 Apr 1913 Lee County, North Carolina, USA
Death	:	21 Oct 2007 Laurinburg, Scotland County, North Carolina, USA
Burial	:	Hillside Memorial Park, Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate	:	34.7894000, -79.4646000
Description	:	Katharine Lasater Stearns, widow of Col. J.S. Stearns, Jr., died on Sunday evening, October 21, 2007, In Laurinburg, NC, her hometown for the past sixty years. She may have been ninety-four years old, although she didn't look it, and no one ever believed it. Her red hair never turned gray or white, as she'd always hoped, but mellowed out to seem almost blonde in her later years, possibly because she thought it was fun to match her daughter Mary. Katharine Lasater (she would eventually adopt "Stedman" as her middle name) was born on April 4, 1913, in Sanford, NC,... Read More	Katharine Lasater Stearns, widow of Col. J.S. Stearns, Jr., died on Sunday evening, October 21, 2007, In Laurinburg, NC, her hometown for the past sixty years. She may have been ninety-four years old, although she didn't look it, and no one ever believed it. Her red hair never turned gray or white, as she'd always hoped, but mellowed out to seem almost blonde in her later years, possibly because she thought it was fun to match her daughter Mary. Katharine Lasater (she would eventually adopt "Stedman" as her middle name) was born on April 4, 1913, in Sanford, NC, to David Eaton Lasater and his wife, Lou Brown Harrington Lasater. She was the third child for the Lasaters, following her sister Louise and her brother James, and within a few years she would be joined by Dick, Bill, and Nancy. At the age of twelve, Katharine moved with her family to a farm in Harnett County, near Lillington and Erwin. At fourteen she entered Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, NC, as a high school freshman -- thanks to her Uncle Ed, the only Lasater ever to have real money -- and in 1934, at twenty-one, she became the first member of her family to receive a college degree when she graduated from Salem College. Her major was English, but sometimes she was better at soccer than she was at Shakespeare. She was President of the Student Body and any number of other prestigious organizations, and she loved getting away with things (i.e. an unauthorized airplane ride with an unauthorized date), but she really, really hated having to try out for the May Court every spring, so she eventually stopped doing that. There's a wonderful yearbook picture of her at age nineteen, in 1932, wearing a dress that Stonewall Jackson's widow had owned during the Civil War, but Katharine always claimed that the dress was even slimmer than she was. She worked for a year in an office in West Virginia, but ultimately she was drawn into teaching and back to North Carolina, to Union County, where she would earn fifty dollars a month and be glad to get it. There she almost had a date with J.S. Stearns, Jr., a local boy who evidently didn't want to date her. But meddling friends who were convinced that no one but Katharine could handle Junius tried again two years later, and this time the plan worked. He fell in love with her and told her so by singing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to her during a stage performance in Monroe, NC, home of Jesse Helms, Randy Travis, and Mary. So they lived happily ever after, but first they got married, but not when they'd intended to. Even though the invitations had been printed for a September 20, 1940, wedding date, the U.S. Army interfered, and the ceremony was moved up to September 13. Friday, September 13. Junius's birthday. People sent them bad-luck cards with black cats all over them, but the marriage endured. Oh, it's true that Katharine once said, "We've been married almost forty-five years, and I'm not sure we're going to make it," but they made it. Despite the War, J.S. Stearns III (Buck) was born in 1943, and Mary Katharine was born long, long, long after that. The family moved to Gibson while building a house in Laurinburg and then into the house in Laurinburg. Junius, who by then was a Colonel, joined his dad and brother George in J.S. Stearns Construction Company and also continued his military service, this time with the National Guard. Katharine was a housewife, but "housewife" is far too limited a term for describing everything that she did in the house. Suffice it to say that she was miraculous in the kitchen and in the garden, and she made all of Mary's clothes, which the other little girls' mothers tried to copy, but their attempts never got close to the original. It was a life of rarefied privilege for Mary and Buck, like "Leave It to Beaver" without Eddie Haskell or Mrs. Cleaver's pearl necklace. And then the school system needed a teacher. When Mary was halfway through kindergarten, Katharine was drafted back into the classroom, and there she stayed, at Laurinburg High School, for thirty years. She taught English grammar and literature (poetry and Dickens) to her daughter and hundreds of other inarticulate hooligans, and eventually she began teaching French as well. She also directed plays, chaperoned the prom, had bus duty, listened to very, very bad oral book reports, and suggested that her students could learn to think. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a brick tossed through her front window and glass all over the dining room floor. It was the age of the black leather jacket, but she wasn't impressed. Occasionally she heard from a disgruntled parent as well. She never missed a beat, though, and she never looked back once she'd finally retired. In 1986, Junius died. Seven months later (three days before Christmas), her house burned. Five months later, she suffered a heart attack while being air-lifted to Duke University Medical Center. She had quadruple bypass surgery. She had a stroke. She was diagnosed with emphysema (because other people in the world were smokers). In response, she began a twenty-year stint of volunteering for the Red Cross. It seems she was a whiz with the Blood Mobile. In the 1990s, Katharine became a groupie for Mary's son Ted Shaffner, who was directing plays at the Lincoln Center and off-Broadway and at the National Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, where she and Mary met celebrities as disappointing as Kevin Kline and saw "The Gift of the Magi" set to music. They took little holiday trips to places like the Outer Banks and got lost a lot. Then when Mary married John Tuley, they still went to lots of fun places, but they stopped getting lost, which may have been a shame. On September 27, 2007, at John and Mary's house in Raeford, NC, Katharine Stearns fell and broke her hip. Once in the hospital, she suffered every imaginable disaster and died three and a half weeks later -- alert, uncomplaining, and making her own decisions to the end. Six beloved nephews served as pallbearers. Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns was grandmother to Laura Stearns Harhai, David Stearns, Eric Shaffner, Ted Shaffner, Joey Shaffner, and John Stearns and grandmother to Rebecca Harhai, Nick Harhai, and Stefan Shaffner. At the time of her death, she was making plans to visit the Outer Banks (again), Mt. Airy, Hilton Head Island, and the North Carolina Zoo, but she was doubting that she could get to Suriname, in the rain forest of South America, where Joey was beginning his third year with the Peace Corps. She read the newspaper every day, watched television with the sound turned all the way up, went everywhere that John and Mary went, missed her grandchildren, and decided that there was no point in going to the polls to vote. She considered her life remarkable but herself rather ordinary. She loved having fun. Perhaps this small, over-used excerpt from "Remember WENN" will help her family survive their grief: "What is death? Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. And I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other then, that we are still. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Life means all that it ever meant. There's absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I'm out of sight? I am waiting for you somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well." The above beautiful tribute was written by Mary Katharine Stearns Tuley, whom I am most proud to call my couin. JFP. And from a poem I composed for Katharine, 21 Oct. 2008: Where she has gone, Love and laughter endure, Life Eternal is sure, In that bright Dawn.

frequently asked questions (FAQ):

Where is Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns's memorial?
Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns's memorial is located at: Hillside Memorial Park, Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA.
When did Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns death?
Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns death on 21 Oct 2007 in Laurinburg, Scotland County, North Carolina, USA
Where are the coordinates of the Katharine Stedman Lasater Stearns's memorial?
Latitude: 34.7894000
Longitude: -79.4646000

Family Members:

Parent

Spouse

Col Junius Stitt Stearns Jr.

(1913 - 1986)

Siblings

Flowers:

Nearby Cemetories:

1. Hillside Memorial Park
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7894000, -79.4646000

2. Hillside Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7844009, -79.4625015

3. Leach Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7921982, -79.4702988

4. Cedar Grove Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7817300, -79.4522100

5. Reedy Creek Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7738914, -79.4630585

6. Matthews Chapel AME Zion Church Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7657040, -79.4775010

7. Stewart Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8106003, -79.4458008

8. McNair Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7888985, -79.5141983

9. McFarland Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8333015, -79.4681015

10. Gibson Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7907982, -79.5186005

11. Covington Cemetery
East Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7619019, -79.4152985

12. Malloy Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8272018, -79.5077972

13. McCormick Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7454000, -79.5029700

14. Snead-Norton Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8342018, -79.5017014

15. Blue Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7524986, -79.5143967

16. Carmichael-McIntyre Cemetery
Stewartsville Township, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7352370, -79.4414480

17. Gibson Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7825012, -79.5353012

18. Morgan Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8025017, -79.5350037

19. Caledonia United Methodist Church Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7290916, -79.4603958

20. McKinnon Cemetery
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7349600, -79.4994700

21. Sullivan Cemetery
East Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7550011, -79.4008026

22. Scottish Heritage Cemetery
East Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7548890, -79.4003390

23. Lytch Cemetery
Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.7458000, -79.5218964

24. Mission of Faith Power and Deliverance Church Ceme
Laurinburg, Scotland County, USA
Coordinate: 34.8147690, -79.3922670