Katherine "Kathy" Winham

Kathy was born on September 19, 1953 at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia to Wesley Stephen Gordeuk and Olga Gordeuk (Shatagin) of Media, PA. She was the eldest of five siblings and is survived by the other four, Elena, John, Olga (Greto) and Alex, as well as her mother Olga. Her father passed away in 2008. Her family moved often: first to Danvers, Mass; then Ransomville, NY; then Montclair, NJ; and then to Glastonbury CT where Kathy attended high school, graduating in 1971. From 1971 to 1973 Kathy studied at Queens University, Ontario, Canada (taking a vacation in Jamaica with Sue, a fellow student!) and graduated with a BA in Mathematics. Kathy studied archaeology and ancient history in the College of General Studies at the University of Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1977 and took work at Aetna insurance company during this period. It was in 1975 that she joined a field trip to York, England and stayed on during the winter (1975-1976) as part of an excavation team where she met her husband to be, another team member, Peter Winham. They worked together on an excavation in Crowborough before both went on various excavations in Europe, Kathy to France in 1976 and Portugal and Humb...[more]

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ide in 1977, meeting when they could (including the Shetland Islands!). In 1978 they were both able to secure work in Winchester, Hampshire, where they were engaged. They married in January 1979 at St. Marks Church in Little Common, East Sussex. In June 1980, her husband landed an archaeology position in Wyoming, USA. Packing all their worldly belongings in a tea chest shipped to Boston, they moved to the Red Desert of Wyoming, with Kathy also being hired for the field crew. Unfortunately, this position ended in October and they returned to Glastonbury, where they ran the Bird House and sold Kathy's father's wood carved ornamental waterfowl decoys. Early in the new year, they both had been offered jobs in South Dakota, and travelling by train and bus they eventually arrived in Brookings to join the Archeology Lab based at SDSU, but working throughout the Great Plains. In fact, there were three people on that train, as Kathy was pregnant - with Ilya Peter Winham being born on Sept 10, 1981 at the Brookings Regional Hospital. By the time her second child, Dale Ivan Winham, was born on Dec 14, 1983 the Archeology Lab had moved to become part of Augustana College (now University) in Sioux Falls, SD. To spend more time with Ilya and Dale, Kathy worked part-time for Rehfeld's Framing, while taking on more projects with the Archeology Lab as the children grew up. Her many interests included her Russian heritage, gardening, politics, pet cats, sewing, baking, astrology, reading, history, and archeology (being a member of the South Dakota Archaeological Society - Sioux Falls Chapter). By 2004, the children were at college and Kathy wished to return to her roots on the east coast - something that was eventually accomplished by the opening in January 2005 of "The Englishman's Bed and Breakfast" in a 1794 historic house in Cherryfield, Maine. Kathy also volunteered on, and eventually chaired, the Town Planning Board. Kathy and Peter ran the B&B and also "Teas of Cherryfield" until July 2018, when what was eventually diagnosed as ALS forced this chapter in her life to end. Ilya, now married to Emily (Sahakian), have one child, Leo (4) and live in Athens, Georgia. Dale, now married to Stacey (Wood) and with two children, Blake (6) and Laine (3), live in Rochester, Minnesota - which is where Kathy and Peter moved in 2018 in order to be close to family as well as the Mayo Clinic. They were able to move into their own home in April 2019. On January 7, 2020 Kathy passed away peacefully at home. A private burial service will be held at the Oakwood Cemetery in Rochester on January 10. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the ALS Association Memorial Fund for Katherine Winham here. http://web.alsa.org/site/TR/Personal/General?px=8115932&pg=personal&fr_id=10053#.Xhc9iMg2qUl