The Many Faces of Karen

Artist

There are people out there that are just naturally good at art and everything that go with being artistic.  That is Karen.  I only have a few things that she has drawn, painted, etc.  It makes me a little sad that we didn’t find all her artwork and things.  Please enjoy the few things we did find.  They are amazing!!!  The details, colors and everything.  Karen was definitely a talented person and I am sure you can see it in the two pieces below. 

Fill Your Body With Coke

Fill your lives with

Laughter,

Your heart with Love,

Your home with Family,

Your body with Coke,

Your world with Kindness.

Memorial Service Program

Karen Webb

July 12, 1961—May 22, 2012

Our hearts break as we remember our daughter, sister, aunt, great aunt, friend, confidant, care giver, coworker, volunteer, support and listener.

Born in Salt Lake City, 7th child to Ralph & Viola Webb. Beloved Sister to Diana, Dale, Craig, Gary, Debbie & Julie. Favorite Aunt to Cindy, David, Scotty, Michelle, Doug, Kara, Natalie, Melina, LeAnn, Kathy, Kim, Amy, Jeffery, Gina, Valerie, Kayla.

Preceded in death by her Mother, whom she tirelessly cared for and loved dearly. She leaves behind her broken hearted father whom she cared for and to whom she was extremely close. She loved her family and enjoyed having them around. She had a warm compassionate spirit that made all around her feel welcome and comfortable.

Karen was raised in Millcreek and graduated from Olympus High. At Olympus she was a Track Star and ran the 100m, 220m, 440m Relay, and 880 Relay. Her Relay team took 1^st place at State Competition. Her track friends and team were very special to her and she often shared stories about those memories.

Karen graduated from the University of Phoenix and enjoyed life-long learning. Schooling was important to her and she encouraged her nieces and nephews to further their education.

She was extremely artistic. Painting and art were her passion. As a crafter she loved giving her creations as gifts to family and friends. Her masterful Tole painting skills brightened many homes.

Her other passion was Coca-Cola. She learned at an early age that blood wasn’t the most important liquid in her body and water had no place. Coke truly was “IT”.

She worked with many dear friends at Safeway, Digital, Compaq, Coca-Cola and Hewlett -Packard. Her coworkers considered her a lively, fun and priceless addition.

She dedicated her life to serving others. She gave each and every person in her life 100% attention and love. She wholeheartedly listened and cared for countless individuals. Always happy, funny, smiling, Karen brought joy to everyone she knew. She made everyone feel like they were the most important person in her life. Truly an Angel in every sense of the word.

Giving constant care and service as a 1^st Choice Hospice Volunteer for 6 years. She selflessly served countless individuals. Somehow managing to serve more hours volunteering, than a full time paid employee worked in a week’s time. She was chosen as 1^st Choice’s “Volunteer of the Year” many years.

She was the glue that held our family together. Wherever Karen was, that is home. She was a personal confidant to more people than we even know. She gave to all and expected nothing in return. She gave more in a week than most people give their whole life. She was more than just an aunt, sister, daughter, and friend; to those that loved her she was a 2^nd mother and Best friend one could hope for.

Karen will be dearly missed. She leaves an emptiness in our lives. We find peace and solace knowing that Karen is in the arms of her mother. They are sure to both be watching over us today.

karingkaren.blogspot.com

A Toast to Karen

This is the toast that was made at the Memorial Service for Karen.  A big thanks to Cindy Litchford (Karen's Niece) who was able to read this at the service. 


To Karen Webb, or “Care Bear,” as her mom would call her. Which ultimately, was the perfect nickname.

I’ve never met someone who lived so selfless in all my life. For the woman who appeared to have everything, it was actually us that had it all because she was in our lives. Karen was our best friend, family, and heart. 

Now, for all of us who picture her with grandma, I’m sure the hugs and tears are over. For that thunder we heard the other day was Karen screaming up in Heaven, “where the hell is the coke?!”

To Karen.  We love you, we miss you, we’ll continue your legacy of kindness and service forever and ever. To Karen.

What is in a Name, by Amy Hill, her niece

Writing tends to help me sort through things.  Especially when it is writing I think others will be able to read and support me and even grow themselves as they read.  I’m not thinking others all have to agree with what I say, but I will say thanks for listening.

It is late and I don’t think well when it is late.  So, for today, I will keep things short and sweet.  But be warned, you will probably hear from me again.

Karen is my aunt, my mom’s youngest sister by a year and her closest friend and support.  That means that for my sister and me she was nearly a mom, and one of our greatest support, confident and buddy.  She did everything with our family.  She was and will remain a central figure, a central and vital part of our life that we valued before she died, but feel the immensity of the absence only in the days since she has not come home to us.

Many memories will flow to paper as I take the time to remember, to laugh and to cry as I try to keep alive the pieces of her that are in me.

Today, a simple one, a memory I would have forgotten if it weren’t for the card that found its way to my house among the other belongings we are sorting through.   I have no elegance for words when writing birthday cards, but sometimes a card fits a person so perfectly that it had to have been made for them.  This was the case with this card.  The outside says this:

You were created

with a beautiful purpose,

with a smile that warms,

with words that encourage,

with a heart that loves and gives

so freely and sweetly to others…

On the inside I wrote something then that I probably had no real concept of how true it was.  The summer I gave Karen this card I was working at Anasazi, a wilderness program for troubled teens.  At this program all individuals are given an Anasazi name, a name that through simple words tries to encompass who that person is.  In this letter I gave Karen her Anasazi name, it was fun for me to try my skill at encompassing all that is amazing and meaningful about Karen into a couple words.  Here is what I told Karen:

I want to give you an Anasazi name and it took me a while to think of it.  Anasazi names have a way of painting a picture of who you are in beautiful terms.  I hope you like yours.  YELLOW QUAIL  Yellow symbolizes warmth, sensitivity and gentle nature while the quail (besides being a bird you know and love) means social, friendly , loyal, looking out for others, and beauty.  Karen, I see each one of these qualities abundantly in you.  We tease you about your sensitivity and warmth towards others but it is one of your greatest qualities.  You couldn’t be the amazing Kare-Bear if you didn’t love as deeply as you do.  You are my aunt but you are also my friend.  Thank you for everything, but especially for the chance to know and love you.

What I said then is still true today.  Karen was caring.  Karen gave so much of herself to others.  It is part of what made her beautiful.  I think many of you will agree.  

(Did you know Karen feed the quail by her home for a long long time.  She watched them like a mother.)

Memories from her friend, Kathy Chirico

Hi,

I know your hearts are breaking over Karen. I would just like to tell you some of my fond memories of her.

The first time I met her, I believe was in 1997 or 1998.  I had been working for EDS and supported Greg

Grosser’s sales people.  We were at Laughlin, NV.  The Bulls had just beaten the Jazz.  Karl Malone had tried to fake a foul on Michael and it didn’t work.  They called it the ‘flop’.  When I heard she was from SLC, I was kidding her about that.  I quickly found out that she was a huge sports fan and loved professional basketball as well as college football.

I believe it was at this trip, when her mother was rushed to the hospital with a stroke.  So Karen left early to go home but that was the beginning of our friendship.  We would meet at different meetings and hang out together.  It seemed we went to Laughlin at least once a quarter and had many great times there.

In 2000 I went to work for Compaq in sales.  Karen, Marie Kemp and I were the 3 base sales reps for WorldCom.  Gary let Karen come to Okla the first time early that winter to spend a couple of days training and working with me.  This is when the pictures of Karen and the dogs were taken at my place. She stayed with me instead of at a hotel.

She bought cowboy boots, was introduced to Braum’s ice cream and met my daughter and granddaughter. After that trip, she came to Okla several times.  Once she came and it was in the 100s and she thought it was too hot to go off and leave my dogs.  So she searched until she found a hotel in Dallas that would take pets and off we go to Dallas with the dogs.

We would go out to eat and always go to Braum’s for ice cream and bring the dogs back their dinner.

She thought they should in air conditioned rooms. There was a lady we worked with that drove us both nuts and she didn’t like dogs, and we thought that would keep her from coming back to our room, but it didn’t work. !  she came anyway. Karen about died, because we had gone out to eat with this lady, and I was saving food on my plate to take back to the dogs, and this lady reached over and started eating the food on my plate!

Karen came a couple of times and we would always go to see my dad. She loved the elderly, and she went to Alva a couple of times, we went to church, and went to the Alabastern caverns.  These were called the bat caves.  We went to the sand dunes.  At one of the restaurants, there was a stuffed animal (fake) called a jackalope. It was a face of a jack rabbit, but the rest of the body was an antelope.  She thought it was for real.  She said, I didn’t know they really had animals like this.  Well, they really didn’t. we laughed about that.

On one of the trips, we went horse back riding, and she actually went.  She was always so good to my dad and great with my grandkids.  When I told them that she had passed away, they remembered her with happiness and the things that they had done with her.

Whenever we had business trips, we would always come in early or stay late and make a week end out of the trip to see the sights.  I know we were in Hilton Head for a week, and stayed over and went to savannah, which wasn’t that far from Hilton Head.  Krispe Kreme was all over the place, and we ate them until we were sick! I think we both ate 12 apiece.

You all remember our trip to Hawaii, how we went out a week or 10 days early and had such a great time.  I still have the CD that Amy made me for Enya. That was a fun trip, altho I think it rained every day.

I played everything by the book pretty much, and Karen was always trying to get me to duck out of meetings and go play.  I was freaking out, I had never ditched a meeting or school in my life, and in Hawaii, LV, and other places we went she was always having me cut class. I just knew we were going to get caught.

Once in Las Vegas, I had already put on my pjs and was getting ready to settle in for the night, and she came and got me, made me get dressed, and we were out for the evening.  Of course, I had a good time, and of course we didn’t make it to the class the next morning.

Once when she was here in the fall, we went to an OU football game, and it poured rain.  They had to evacuate the stands and we went down and stood underneath the stadium until it quit raining and then they resumed the game. I probably would have gone on home.

She always called me “RICO”.  She would holler ‘RICO” and I knew who it was.  We would be on concalls and she would yell RICO!  I could have killed her! Lol.

We went on a party bus in Kansas City that Greg had got for the team, and of course that was an all nighter. Karen was never a drinker, nor was I, so we stayed sober and watched what everyone else was doing to make fools of themselves.

Once when she was here, we went to the Bombing Memorial from the Murrah Bombing that happened in 1995.  I know she had a great time at that.

When she would come, we could not go one day without Braum’ ice cream.  She also like SONIC.  In the beginning I don’t think she had access to SONIC, but later on I know that she did.  Once we went a day without BRAUMs, so the next day we had to go twice!  She had to have one per day.

Once when she came to see me, it was winter, and I put her in a spare bedroom with flannel sheets. She freaked out.  She always slept in the nude mostly with no blankets.  I slept in flannel pjs on flannel sheets.

Sometimes Gary would make us share a room to cut costs, and you could always tell which side of the bed was Karen’s. blankets were in dis array, and my side didn’t look like it had been slept in.

Once in Colo Spgs, we went to Gail’s house, I can’t remember her last name, and we helped her kids paint pumpkins for Halloween.  Gail liked horses, and she had two Belgians, name North Dakota and Nebraska!  Anyhow, we rode those horses.  You had to have a step stool to get on the horse, they were so big.

Once at my house, she had left her suitcase open, and my dog, Kodi, the white dog, had got in her suitcase and taken a pair of her panties and came walking out in to the front room with them. She freaked out and she chased him all over the house to get her panties.

Once we had gone to see my dad, and while we were there it started snowing, and he said we had better head for home. What normally would be a 3 hr trip, turned in to a 5 hr trip and the roads were treacherous.  I remember how Karen would get car sick, and we were sliding all over the road and she kept saying that she was going to throw up, and I said, don’t you dare. We did ok and we were almost home, and I couldn’t stop the car, and we went up a bank on the side of the road, and you could see our tire tracks there the next day, but nothing happened and we were safe.

We had so much fun on our trips.  Our last trip was in 2004, and Karen met me in LA for a long week end. Wasn’t this the year that Val got married, because she brought me all the wedding pictures. She rented a mustang convertible because she wanted to test drive a convertible and see what it was like before she went out and bought one.  I think she eventually did buy one.

We found a coke place that she bought stuff all the time from, and when she realized what the place was, she told them her name and they recognized it because she had bought so much stuff from them.

We went to the Rose Bowl in 2001.  That was a great time, she was familiar with Pasadena, knew her way around and we had a super fun time.

After the LA trip, when I would ask Karen if she wanted to meet me somewhere or come see me, she would always say yes, and said she made plans, and then at the last minute she would cancel. This happened at least 5 times!  Maybe more.  I never could figure out why, because in the past we had so much fun going to all these places. With both of us being single we had so much fun and if she had someone to watch her dad, she could get away.

She helped me get my last job.  After I was laid off, or took early retirement from HP, she called me one day and asked if I wanted to come back to work, and she got me my job at Spherion, which I had until we were laid off this past January. But I worked there for 6 years, which helped, because my dad lived with me and this way I could work at home and be with him.

She would always call and ask about my dad.  She really knew a lot about the elderly, what to look out for healthwise, etc etc.

As he was approaching death, she would call me every morning and ask me how he was and what was happening.  On the day of his death, she had told me that morning that he wouldn’t make it thru the day.

Hospice came and checked him out and told me he would probably last another week.  He died that night, so she knew exactly what was going on.  My dad loved her so much. He loved the stories about her quail.  He couldn’t believe how many she fed.  He was a farmer and hunted quail and kept telling her she ought to cook them for dinner, teasing her.

Memories of Karen from LeAnn, her Niece

When I was younger Aunt Karen had a condo near my parents. I loved to go visit her. I am pretty sure that I bugged my parents every day to go visit. I wanted to swim, swim, swim and eat yummy snacks at Aunt Karen's house!  I remember swimming until we crashed. Then we would head over to her house and chill. She was always so generous and let us have as many snacks as we wanted.

I also have this great memory of driving to Denver, Colorado with her and my father. She was moving there for a job. It was such a great trip. She took time to do some fun touristy stuff with us. We went to a fun place for dinner called Casa Bonita. They had sky divers jumping during dinner. We also had a old fashioned type Western Picture place. We had our pictures taken. Karen did her usual and made a funny face. Karen took the time to play all the arcade games with me. We also visited the Coor's Brewery. It was a really neat tour. At the end was taste testing and Karen harassed me about being too young. I was sipping Coke while my dad and her tasted the other drinks. (Okay, Karen probably had a sip of Coke too!) On that trip we also went and got a yummy steak dinner. It was a neat place that would cut off anyone who wore a fancy tie to dinner. It also had a giant yellow slide in the building. Karen, of course, always willing to have fun went down it several times with me.

I also remember a great trip to Yellowstone that Karen took with my Family. She was suppose to sleep with me and I was such a sleep kicker she ended up on the floor. Poor Karen. Karen made that trip so fun.  She had driven her own car and I remember all of the kids wanted to ride with her. I remember when I got her all to myself, she was showing me how cruise control worked. I was young and she let me push the button that speed up the car and I was thrilled! Plus I was in the car with the coolest Aunt, I was in kid heaven!

Dolly Drawing

Karen drew this picture of LeAnn's dog Dolly.  She loves dogs and especially loved Dolly!

Fun Ride

Karen LOVES riding in her sweet ride.  You might say she would rather drive topless. 

Sobering to think that this car will no longer grace its usual parking spot with a happy and playful Karen waiting just inside the door of the family house.

Karen Loves Her Mom

Karen cared for her mom, Viola Webb, with a selfless tenderness and a sense of humor through all the difficult days. 

Growing Up

Track Star

Look at those legs!

Fun times with friends after a track meet.

Precious Child

Grandpa's Favorite Picture

Senior High School Graduation Picture: 1979