KATHY LESLIE HARDIN OBITUARY

By Susan Galvin McLester, Maureen Rack Lochtefeld and (in absentia) Clara Kimball McLaughlin

Katherine Leslie Hardin, loving wife and mother, multi-skilled creative, inveterate global traveler and steadfast friend, lost her battle with melanoma in 2021. Kathy was a graduate of Palo Alto High School and Chico State University.

Married to college beau Dick Hardin, Kathy was a flight attendant-turned full-time mom to daughters Janet and Christy. Alongside raising kids, she became a self-taught expert in the arts of interior design, knitting, crocheting, photography...you name it. If your home needed spiffing, Kathy would be there with vases, screens, curtains, whatever. If a friend needed cheering, she'd offer a photo card—-homemade by her but also available at the local gift shop.

Kathy was also a fiercely competitive athlete. From sailing racing and water skiing, to local and national tennis competitions, she racked up the awards, later passing along the skills and love of those athletic pursuits to her children, and grandchildren.

To some of us, among her longest-term friends, she was fun-loving, quirky and accidentally hilarious. But too, she ended up being the glue that helped bind us through five decades of life's tougher stuff. Twice yearly it was she who organized the mini vacations to Napa, San Francisco, La Jolla and other spots which gave us air to mull, to argue, to remember, to laugh. Luke Snagg. Skunk juice on the heater.

Once, while wine tasting, we learned Kathy thought "dogma" was a bad word. That was a very good day for us. We ribbed her. We ribbed her some more. And then we ribbed the hell out of her. 

She laughed very hard.

She was a damn good sport.