Kathleen T. (McNamara) Cunningham

Gaithersburg, MD – Mrs. Kathleen T. "Kathy" (McNamara) Cunningham, of Gaithersburg, died Thursday, April 28, 2016 while visiting with family in Iowa. She was 71.

Kathy was a daughter of the late Leo F. and Teresa M. (Norton) McNamara and was born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire. After her 1962 graduation from Saint Joseph's High School in Manchester she earned a nursing degree from Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Portland, Maine.

She began her nursing career at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts before she joined the Nurse Corps of the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. While serving as a lieutenant at the Memphis Naval Air Station Hospital in Tennessee she met her future husband, Kansas native, Orlin "Chick" Cunningham, a career naval officer.

Following her military service Kathy and Chick were married in January, 1970 in Memphis. Chick's naval career took the couple and their family to Gaithersburg, Maryland, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and the Navy's Bureau of Medicine in Washington, D.C.

After Chick's retirement from the Navy the family moved to Kansas and to Iowa where he worked as a hospital administrator for a number of years before their return to Maryland.

In addition to her husband of forty-six years, Chick, Kathy leaves her children, Kevin T. Cunningham and his wife, Verla, of Des Moines, Iowa and Scott D. Cunningham and his wife, Courtney, of Grimes, Iowa; her grandchildren, Christopher, Monica, Meghan, Jordan, Camden and Hudson Cunningham; her sisters, Eileen M. Puglielli of Bedford and Mary-Ann McNamara of Waltham and many nieces, nephews, cousins and their families.

Family and friends will honor and remember Kathy's life by gathering for calling hours in The Joyce Funeral Home, 245 Main Street (Rte. 20), Waltham on Thursday, May 5th from 4 to 8 p.m. and again at 10 a.m. on Friday morning before leaving in procession to Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted Church, 880 Trapelo Road, Waltham where her Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Burial at a later date will be in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.

Memorial donations may be made to the American Lung Association, 14 Beacon Street, Suite 717, Boston, MA 02108.