September 30, 2025
REST IN PEACE
Kathleen "Kay" Mullen passed away on September 30, 2025, at the age of 95.
Kay was born to Nitha Miller and Rudolph Parr at St. Francis Hospital in Waterloo, Iowa on April 9, 1930. She attended St. John's elementary school and Our Lady of Victory Academy High School. One year after graduation she attended the College of St. Teresa in Winona, Minnesota. It was here that Kay met the Sisters of St. Francis and after her second year of college, she entered the Franciscan Community. She taught elementary, junior and senior high school for fourteen years. She was also the organist in most of the parishes she served and directed numerous choirs and choruses. The elementary school was where she did the majority of her teaching. She loved working with children, parents and fellow teachers.
During the years teaching in the Chicago area, Kay completed an MBA from Notre Dame University. But her years in the community were soon to end and after much discernment during and following the Vatican II Council, she took a leave of absence to consider her future. Kay left her community and moved to Pennsylvania where she soon found a teaching position. She taught at Devon Elementary School for the next two years. As time went on, Kay realized she would not return to her former life in the convent and asked for a dispensation. She remained teaching in Devon for the next year and one half. It was at the end of this period that her casual friendship with Anthony Mullen , a former Augustinian priest, developed and within the year, Kay and AJ were married in San Jose, California where AJ worked with other engineers at Stanford in a summer grant program. Two weeks later they began the 1100-mile journey to Fairbanks, Alaska where AJ was on sabbatical from Villanova University. During that year, he completed study and research at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska. It was during this year that their son Tony was born. Kay and her family returned to Pennsylvania where they lived for two years, then to Albuquerque for one more year before settling in Renton, Washington for the next twenty-seven years.
Shortly after arriving in Renton, Kay and her husband adopted their son Timothy from Vietnam. While her sons were in preschool, Kay took up acrylic painting from a local artist, though after his death, other family interests and events took much of her time. Later, she became liturgy/music coordinator at her local parish and did substitute teaching where her sons were in school. In time, Kay earned a Master's degree in school counseling from Seattle University and worked with children, parents, teachers, and principals in the Lake Washington School District for the next seven years. She became certified as a mental health counselor working in a social agency setting and in private practice. It was during these years that she and her husband began traveling to visit Tony who was working and studying in various parts of Europe. Both Kay and her husband remained active in parish life in Renton. Kay became involved in prison ministry work in her local parish for several years and later in Tacoma, she offered classes at New Phoebe House for women returning from prison.
In the year 2000, Kay and AJ returned with son Timothy and other parents and young adult adoptees to Vietnam for the first time in 25 years. It was also during these years that Kay began to write poetry more seriously. Her first book of poetry, Let Morning Begin, was published in 2001, a second book in 2006, A Long Remembering: Return to Vietnam and in 2012, her book Even the Stones was published in honor of AJ after his passing. Kay's poetry has appeared in numerous poetry journals and anthologies. She received the William Staff Award for poetry in the spring of 2002. After she and AJ retired, they moved to Port Ludlow, Washington, a village in the woods by the bay. Here, Kay learned to play the harp, became a more serious gardener and continued writing poetry. They resided there until AJ's illness and subsequent death in 2005. The following year Kay moved to Tacoma.
While in Tacoma, she became a member of the staff at Catherine Place, a center for women run by the Dominican sisters, where she taught classes in poetry and presented workshops on loss and grief as well as in the greater Tacoma/Olympia area. She became involved with the "Fusion" poets' group in Olympia and remained connected to the poetry community in Tacoma. Over the years, she did many poetry readings around the greater Seattle area. In 2007, Kay earned an MFA in creative writing from Pacific Lutheran University. For Kay, learning was lifelong. She did volunteer work in local schools and made many friends along the way as she remained active and involved in life.
Kay became a Cojourner with the Rochester Franciscans in the mid 1990's and has remained connected to them, and the Ahimsa group of Franciscans in Albuquerque. In 2012 she became an Associate with the Tacoma Dominican Sisters and was active in promoting the work and values of the Sisters. She loved the people in her life and her work, but always her greatest love and interest was her sons and grandchildren. Relationships in her family of origin were strained which caused her great sadness, but which also taught her to forgive and move on with her own fulfilled life.
Kay is preceded in death by her husband AJ and her sisters, Rudine Frye and Clare "Pim" Nebbitt. She is survived by her sons Tony and Timothy, Tony's wife Yuka and daughters Hana and Beni, Tim's two sons Collen and Jacob, her nieces, Kathleen Frye Rose and husband Gregory, Kimberly Frye Washabough and husband Daniel, Melinda Frye Guadognoli and husband Mark, and her nephew, Christopher Frye and wife Catherine.
A celebration of Kay's life will be held at
Wayside United Church of Christ, 2000 SW Dash Point Rd, Federal Way, WA 98023, on Saturday, Nov 1
Kay, along with her husband AJ, were longtime members of CORPUS. Kay was also a board member for many years.
Fall/Winter 2025
In Remembrance of RWW Alumna Kay Mullen
- Peggy Shumaker
- Former RWW Faculty
When RWW was brand new, everyone was excited to be part of our splendid new program. In our very first workshop I wanted to give people a chance to get to know one another, so I said, “Please tell us something about yourself that nobody in this room knows. For instance, for about a year, I impersonated a nun.” People laughed. With a mischievous grin, Kay Mullen piped up, “For many years, I was a nun.” What a lovely and unexpected icebreaker.
During our year together, Kay wrote of many things—leaving the order, marrying her beloved AJ (a former priest), moving to Alaska, their adoption of an orphan from Viet Nam, the birth of another son, and her ongoing devotion to the community of women.
When AJ fell ill, Kay thought she might have to step away from the program. I suggested this: Kay could send me eight lines a day. I would receive them with respect but would not comment on them at all. They were words for survival, not for analysis. Somehow, Kay wrote those lines. Some of them we revisited, later, and revised. At first I worried that I had added weight to the burden Kay was already carrying. But she told me months after AJ’s passing that focusing on language as she sat at his deathbed let her know that she could find ways to go on.
What a privilege to spend a year in literary conversation with Kay, and then to enjoy our friendship all the years after. She often came back to RWW to enjoy evening readings during residency.
Here is a sample of her work:
day 5 Maundy Thursday
Clouds keep their own vigil,
gray scarves cover the sun
the way linen drapes an altar.
Nothing breaks through
but silence.
The rain may last for days.
Even the moon must wait.
The flight of the kingfisher can’t
be timed. Yet light will open
on tendrils of moss,
on spirals of fern.
And I shall know as I am known.
—Kay Mullen