In Memoriam – August 15, 1941 – June 11, 2025

Kay (as she was known professionally) was a stellar scholar and educator. Her contributions to the advancement of nursing knowledge have and will continue to inspire and facilitate the work of our disciplinary scholars over the years.

I first knew of Kay as the co-author (with Lorraine Olszewski Walker) of several successive editions of Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing. I was delighted to know her personally when she joined the Nursing Theory Think Tank (see blog posts on the Nursing Theory Think Tank – https://nursology.net/2018/11/13/nursology-think-tanks-anyone/ and https://nursology.net/2018/12/03/update-on-early-nursing-theory-think-tanks-facilitated-by-margaret-newman/)

In addition, I had the distinct pleasure of rooming with Kay at a nursing philosophy conference in Banff, Canada, sponsored by the Institute for Philosophical Nursing Research, which gave us time to know each other personally in addition to knowing each other from our publications and our discussions at the annual Nursing Theory Think Tanks.

I learned much, much more about Kay and her contributions to our discipline from her obituary which was shared by her husband, Gayle, with Nursing Theory Think Tank participants and from Lorraine Walker’s eulogy for Kay. The content of Kay’s obituary told us –

“Kay’s accomplishments in the field of nursing were varied and extensive. She completed the three-year Registered Nurse program at Methodist Hospital of Dallas School of Nursing in 1962. The next year, Kay earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Texas Christian University. While Gayle was working on his PhD in North Carolina, Kay earned a Masters of Science in Nursing from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1965. Gayle and Kay eventually moved to Texas where she finished her PhD in Nursing from Texas Woman’s University in 1978 while teaching nursing at McLennan Community College in Waco. Kay then accepted a Professorship position at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was tenured through 2005. . . . Kay was a visiting professor in Thailand from 2015 through 2020 and Vietnam over a period of several years. Kay was honored to complete two Fulbright Professorships. The first Fulbright was in Oslo, Norway and later in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She also completed post-doctoral training in Melbourne, Australia at [the] Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In the U.S. she served as President, Vice President and various chair positions on the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association later known as NANDA International. With these professional accomplishments in hand, in 2005 she accepted the Roger L. and Laura D. Zeller Distinguished Professorship at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio serving as professor and department chair. She continued her professional activities here and abroad until her retirement in January 2016. Although retired, she remained active in the field. Most recently, she received the Living Legend Award from NANDA International at the 2025 conference in Portugal.”

Lorraine Walker shared with me her eulogy for Kay, whose memorial service was on June 28, 2025. Here, I quote some of Lorraine’s marvelous words about Kay:

“In her professional life, Kay was a professor, a scholar, a theorist, and a mentor. But most of all she was a deeply caring person who loved to help others flourish. In her work in nursing, Kay inspired students and faculty in Texas and around the globe to think about their work in new and transformative ways. . . . . During her career, Kay held academic positions in Texas including the University of Texas Health Science at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin, and several other U.S academic institutes, such as Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Duke University in North Carolina. . . . Kay was a thesis reader at the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Kay contributed to nursing education through her teaching of students at all levels from beginning undergraduate students aspiring to become nurses to graduate students pursuing the PhD degree in nursing. Her teaching ranged from basics of care in the field of maternal child health to the esoterica of philosophy of nursing science. Kay also led nursing education through her administrative service as a department head. Her scholarship was deeply invested in helping nurses develop the language and concepts of clinical nursing through her national and international work in concept analysis and theory development. . . . In addition to the book we co-authored [Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing], Kay published over 70 scholarly articles and book chapters. Kay’s scientific work also involved leading or collaborating on over forty research and service projects funded by state, national and international entities. Kay delivered scholarly and clinical lectures and consultations that are too many to count. For these and her other achievements, she received many recognitions and awards, including two Fulbright awards, [and] admission as a fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.”