Kathryn "Kath" Smith, 55, of New Ulm died Friday,
February 7, 2020 at the New Ulm Medical Center in New Ulm.
Funeral service will be 11 AM Saturday, February 15, at St. Paul's Evangelical
Lutheran Church in New Ulm with Pastors Donald Sutton and Nathan Scharf officiating.
Burial will be in the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church Cemetery in Arlington,
Wisconsin at a later date.
Visitation will be 4 - 7 PM Friday and 9 - 11 AM Saturday at St. Paul's
Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Ulm.
To leave an online condolence for her family or to sign the guest book go
to www.mvfh.org.
Kathryn Rene Smith was born May 25, 1964. Her father, Rev.
John P. Meyer, was a WELS pastor serving then in Friesland, Wisconsin. Kath is
the granddaughter of Rev. Louis Meyer (WELS) and the great-granddaughter of
Rev. Carl Waidlich (old Michigan Synod and WELS). Her mother, Barbara
(Eastwood) Meyer, was an RN and hospice nurse & administrator. Kath (she
disliked any nickname apart from Kath) was the fourth of eight children. When
she was 2, they moved to Rib Lake, Wisconsin, following her father's call to
St. John's Lutheran, Rib Lake. She attended grade school and high school there,
where she enjoyed band (French horn), choir, drama, and running cross-country.
She attended college first at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and
graduated with a BA in theater 1986. From there she enrolled in the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, and earned another BA in teaching theater and math.
While there she met and worked with Bob Fosse, a world-renowned dancer and
choreographer.
She taught in Texas in The Woodlands outside of Houston, teaching drama and
coaching soccer, and took a year off from teaching in 1992, working as an
accountant for Derco Aerospace in Milwaukee. It was at this time that she met
her future husband, Timothy Smith, when he cast her as one of the daughters of
King Lear for a Northwestern College production. They were in several plays
together there in which she usually starred (notably South Pacific), and
eventually they fell in love and got engaged in April, 1995, while sharing the
leading roles in Henry V. They were married later that year, on December 30th,
1995.
When Tim graduated from the seminary in 1999, he was assigned to be a
missionary in the Pacific Northwest. They packed up their first two babies, Jon
(born 1996) and Ben (born 1999) and moved to Maple Valley, Washington. They
returned to the Midwest when Tim was called to St. Paul's, New Ulm, Minnesota
in 2001, shortly before Peter was born. A fourth son, Eric, followed in 2005.
Kath attended many Bible studies, sometimes going to four or even five in a
single week. She taught Sunday School, and loved being a paraprofessional at
St. Paul's Lutheran School and later at New Ulm Middle School. She sang in the
choir, and attended virtually every game, meet, event, and performance her sons
were in, always with her VHS camera in hand, and was especially delighted in
their artwork which she hung up and displayed everywhere in their little home
on Jefferson Street. Kath tirelessly edited her husband's daily e-mail
devotions, and looked up every single passage he referenced to make sure he got
the chapter and verse correct.
In 2019, she contracted pancreatic cancer, and she was gathered to heaven by
God on February 7, 2020 while with her husband and sons. The time of her
sojourn on earth was 55 years, 278 days. The number of her friends is
uncountable. The strength of her faith is impregnable. The condition of her
soul is immortal.
