Kathy Bachman

Our beloved wife and mother Kathy Bachman passed peacefully May 3. Our loss is immeasurable, but we take comfort in the joy she brought us, the love she gave us and in remembering a life well lived. Her strong mind and spirit were unfortunately not matched by a strong body. While she suffered from poor health for most of her adult life, she refused to let it limit her. In the end it refused to let her carry on. Kathy dedicated her life to helping those in need and/or who were less fortutnate then her. It never ceased to amaze how people after only a short acquaintance would confide their troubles to her and take comfort from her words and actions. Kathy strove and succeeded in finding finding work and volunteer opportunities that allowed her to channel her compassion productively. As a divorced mother of three small chlidren she got her degree in journalism from the prestigious William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. After working as a journalist she later served as the Vice President for Communications and Education for Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette. Kathy left PP to lead the national human rights advocacy program for her church, the Community of Christ. Perhaps her most treasured memory of working for the church, was being a member of an interfaith delegation that traveled in Afghanistan in 2002 to meet with local people and community leaders and research how her church and others could support the rebuilding that was taking place then. When the 2008 recession forced the church to eliminate her program, she poured her expansive creativity into her own business designing and making handmade soap and body products until her health forced her retirement in 2016. In 1988, she began volunteering for the human rights advocacy organization Amnesty International and spent the ensuing decades serving in multiple capacities and while she felt most valuable doing the day to day work of advocating on behalf of prisoners of conscience and others suffering from human rights abuses, she also served on the board of directors for Amnesty International USA, including leading the organization as chair during a particular difficult time. The thing she regretted most as her health sapped her physical strength in later life was that it diminished her ability to continue serving as she once did. As we move forward without her, we will remember her fierce spirt, keen mind and compassionate heart; her laugh and smile and the joy she took in life from simple things, including cooking, traveling (her work for AI and the church took her to 25 countries on four continents), her cats, watching her home decorating shows and soap operas and spending time with friends and family, especially in recent years, her grandson, Holden. We will hold a celebration of life sometime later this year, probably late summer or early fall and will notify her friends and family when plans solidify. In the interim, those who wish to honor her life and memory can do so by making donations in her name to the organizations she cared for most dearly and best represented her values, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/ Willamette Ways to Give | Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette and Amnesty International USA, Amnesty International USA | Amnesty International USA (amnestyusa.org)