Kathy (Kareemah) Mullen

Profile Updated: November 24, 2021
Class Year: 1971
Residing In: Bedford, VA USA
Comments:

I graduated in 1975 in Denton, TX and immediately got a job working as a certified aid in the Denton State School, while working on an Associates’ Degree in MHMR. However, I never finished the course, as I moved to Bedford, VA, and continued my work at the Lynchburg Training School as an aid. When that position ended, I did homebound teaching for the Bedford County Schools; and when that position ended, I did alterations in different departments stores, until I got a job under a master tailor from Lebanon, Abdul Melki, in a fine menswear store in Roanoke, VA, where I worked for 5 years. When I could no longer hold that job, I applied for SSD and was on disability from 1989 until I got regular SS, and continued to work by volunteering with non-profit organizations (Legacy International) doing bookkeeping, (and World Community) doing video/audio/photo archiving, which I continue doing. I have been able to pass on my sewing knowledge by giving lessons to children that I know and love.

Interests during these years developed around music, and starting around 2000, I began an informal study of opera singing, recital singing, and orchestrated classical music, through listening, reading, attending concerts, and collecting music. That helped develop a desire to take on an instrument and I began playing the piano at 63, which I continue with presently. The same year I began my piano lessons, I was asked by a friend to teach her young child as I learned. So I took him on as a student for four years until he matriculated to another teacher.

Another interest is learning history, mostly through documentaries, connecting dots from the events that happened in my life-time but was either unaware of, or not really able to understand fully.

My spiritual life interest brought me to Bedford, VA, where I met my dearest elder friend, mentor, and teacher of the Sufic path, and have lived in community with like-minded individuals since.

School Story:

Kindergarten at the home of Mrs. Reson in Alice, TX ('58-'59)
St. Elizabeth's Catholic School, Alice, TX - 1st-8th grades ('59-'67)
Dubose Jr. High School, Alice, TX - 9th grade ('68)
William Adams High School, Alice, TX - 10th-12th ('69-'71 moved to new high school senior year)
North Texas State University, Denton, Tx ('71'-'75) graduated with a BS in Education with teaching fields in Drama and English.
Began, but did not complete, a 2 yr Associates Degree in MHMR in 1976.

My interests during my elementary school years included several months of beginning piano in Mrs. Adam home, a few doors down from our house; taking art lessons, along with my 2 brothers, from a Mrs. Thomas in Alice, TX, for a couple of years. We entered annual city competitions, and sometimes placed. And I began sewing around the age of 10, with help over the years from my grandmother, Helen Mullen; Betty Kelly, Dad's legal secretary; and Dee Taylor, mother of a good friend.

My interests in high school were choir (with Mrs. Martha Luigi), participating in school concerts, and annual competitions; being in school plays (drama and speech with Mrs. Maureen Huffstetler), and attending speech tournaments where I participated in prose, poetry, and dramatic readings, duet acting, and one-act plays. In drama class, we also did children's theatre at local elementary schools and local foster care. I continued sewing my clothes for school, and costumes for plays in drama class.

I taught homebound students in Bedford, VA for a couple of years.

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Oct 25, 2023 at 3:33 AM
Oct 25, 2022 at 3:33 AM
Nov 24, 2021 at 4:33 AM
Oct 25, 2021 at 3:33 AM
Kathy (Kareemah) Mullen added a photo to her profile gallery.
May 28, 2021 at 11:18 AM
May 28, 2021 at 11:16 AM
Kathy (Kareemah) Mullen added a photo to her profile gallery.
May 28, 2021 at 11:16 AM
Apr 09, 2021 at 12:15 AM

This may be an easier link to a very nice obit on Bryce Taylor on Legacy.com

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/alicetx/obituary.aspx?n=bryce-b-taylor&pid=196568279&fhid=26710

Apr 08, 2021 at 11:38 PM

I did not know your family came from Czechoslovakia as well.  So important how we connect the dots in life, as it brings out the deepest meanings. And I am glad the information was helpful to you.  You never know what will help someone reconcile with the loss of others.  Even after decades of not being in touch, there seems to be this very deep connection to those we bonded with in our early years.

Apr 08, 2021 at 11:29 PM

Yes, that is a sweet memory.  Sr. Elwyn, she was great…”Freeze!”  She was a sweetheart.  Such a good nature. God bless them both.

Apr 08, 2021 at 2:19 AM

Also a classmate of Tommy in the same first grade in St. Elizabeth’s, just in the last month, I had been thinking of Tommy when I was watching documentaries of WW2 that mentioned Czechoslovakia.  I remember the nuns informed us in a proud way that Tommy’s family was from Czechoslovakia , which always interested me.

I wondered if I could find any thing on what he might be doing presently, so I googled him only to find the news clippings of the accident with he and his brother, James, and sister in law, Irene, and the one-line obit that also included loving tributes from his son and nephew. 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/thomas-bacak-obituary?pid=194389902

Oddly, and sadly for the family losing three brothers so close together, another brother of their family, Hank Bacak, had died on October 19 2019, less than three weeks earlier.  His obit is also available and gives some family history.

 https://www.northdallasfuneralhome.com/obituary/18214/

All apparently fine people who will be missed. May the remaining family find solace in their faith and families.

Apr 08, 2021 at 1:11 AM

Patrice, thank you for verifying this information on Larry’s death.  I only knew that he passed some time after high school and in some kind of vehicle accident.

I went to elementary school with Larry at St. Elizabeth’s.  I remember him fondly.  In sixth grade he sat behind me. When he wasn’t cutting-up out loud in class, he was constantly whispering to me and making me laugh.  One of his antics backfired when he put an ink cartridge in his mouth and bit too hard, and the whole thing went into his mouth.  We had to really stifle our laughing, and I don’t think the teacher caught on, but he had to swallow that ink, and had blue lips for a while.  I think it must have been that same year, after midnight Christmas Eve Mass, that he met me on the steps at the church front doors and asked if I would go steady with him, and had a small present for me.  We didn’t even date, and I didn't know of anyone in our class that dated. I wasn’t sure how we would go steady under these circumstances, so I gently declined.  He took it in stride and wanted me to have the present anyway.  It was a pretty rhinestone necklace.  I kept it and wore it for many years.  Later, in our senior year, he sat behind me again in English class.  He was still the cut-up in class, and was a challenge to teachers, but sitting next to him in class, I realized he had endeared himself to me, way back in 6th grade with his sweet gesture on Christmas Eve, and I enjoyed that class and his company. 

Perhaps, in that English class he told me, or perhaps someone else related it to me, that he had been struck by lightening; struck in such a way that the only thing that happened was that it blew out through the tips of his toes, leaving burn marks.  

Apparently, not even a month after graduating, he had his accident.  I didn’t learn about it until a few years later when I was in college.  I was surprised and sorrowed, but he is remembered with love.  And he remains included in my prayers.

Apr 03, 2021 at 2:50 AM

We were in St. Elizabeth's Elementary School from 1st-8th grade. Lovely person. I remember her mother passing when we were in 6th grade.  She is in my prayers.  

Apr 02, 2021 at 5:22 PM
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Apr 02, 2021 at 5:35 PM

Posted on: Apr 02, 2021 at 5:20 PM

Apr 02, 2021 at 3:20 PM
Apr 02, 2021 at 3:20 PM
Apr 02, 2021 at 3:20 PM
Kathy (Kareemah) Mullen added a photo to her profile gallery.
Apr 02, 2021 at 3:19 PM
Kathy (Kareemah) Mullen added a photo to her profile gallery.
Apr 02, 2021 at 3:19 PM
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