Katsuyo “Kay” (Handa) Tetherly lost her long struggle with cancer on January 2, 2017. She was born in Yamagata City, Yamagata, Japan on August 3, 1945. She graduated from Yamagata Shyogyo High School in 1964, and then worked in banks in Yamagata and Tokyo, as a teller. In 1967 she came to Brookline, Massachusetts, as an au pair, to learn English and further her career. She became attracted to the nursing profession. In those days there was no Test of English as a Foreign Language, so Kay attended classes at Mt. Alvernia Academy in Newton, Massachusetts, to learn English, and then later enrolled at Newton Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing, receiving her diploma in 1972. She then worked at CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh, New York, from 1975 to 1979 in the kidney dialysis unit. She continued to work in kidney dialysis nursing in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1979 switching to surgery at Baystate Medical Center in 1984. She retired as nursing director of Operating Rooms and the SPD unit.
Retirement gave Kay more time to pursue her favorite activities, world travel, golf and gardening, and later mahjong. In 2005 she was the primary designer of a vacation log home on the Atlantic coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, on her family property.
Kay was predeceased by her father and mother, Seizaemon and Setsu Handa and her brother Tsesaku of Yamagata City. She leaves her husband of 44 years, Rev. Jonathan Tetherly and daughter Naomi Tetherly of Chicopee, daughter Christine Tetherly-Lewis and son-in-law Mark Lewis and grandsons Owen and Cody Lewis of Franklin, her niece Sachiko Kozak and husband Theodore and grandnieces Sayaka and Elina Kozak of Monson, and in Japan, three sisters, Hatsue Ito, Suzuko Igarashi and Misayo Iwatani and sister-in-law Shizue Handa all of Yamagata City, and five nieces and two nephews and their families, in Japan. And she leaves family cats Vishnu and Lakshmi. Kay also leaves Rev. Tetherly’s close family, his nephew Jesse and his wife Michelle Bodwell of Manchester, his niece Jenny and her husband Scott Kidder and their daughter Ravena of Andover, his brother-in-law Jack Bodwell of Canaan,, his cousin Rosemary and her husband Arthur Woodman of Londonderry, along with their granddaughters Susan and Meg Kennedy.
Calling hours were held on Sunday, January 8, 2017 from 3 to7 PM, at the Grise Funeral Home, 280 Springfield St, Chicopee. A Funeral Service was held on Monday, January 9, 2017 at Christ’s Community Church, UCC at 10 AM, with burial following in Fairview Cemetery. Please send a donation in lieu of flowers to the local American Cancer Society , 59 Bobala Road., Holyoke, Massachusetts 01040 or to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215. For online condolences, please visit GriseFH.com.