Following is a speech that I shared at the memorial for my Aunt Kathryn Kucera (the sister of my Dad, Tom Kutchera) who passed away on May 3, 2025 at the age of 95 years old:
I grew up knowing my Aunt Kate as the host of many family parties at her house on George Street in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. To the right is one such event with my parents, cousins, grandparents, and my Auntie Barbara. Cousin Betsy is holding me, as a chunky little baby, on the left. One of her art works hangs behind all of us, a circular oil painting with orange figures falling out of the sky.
Years later, as a young adult, I would occasionally stay with her and we would take the train into the city to visit the Art Institute of Chicago among other destinations. On one such visit, at the end of a hot summer day, I remember her pulling something out of her freezer. “Frozen grapes?” I asked. A familiar fruit became something strange and new as a perfect mini popsicle that you could chew after a sweaty, summer day in the city.
My Aunt Kate very much appreciated family gatherings. Here’s an email that she sent to me on January 30, 2011 after I hosted a brunch at my apartment in Chicago’s Logan Square:
Joe, as family matriarch I especially thank you for your party with its perfect seasonal timing! What could be more appealing on a cold, gray and dreary winter day than a convivial gathering of family in the warming colors of your setting a la España. Your party was surely a welcome event and I had a lovely time. I am really glad to have seen your mother and dad in a more leisurely way than was possible at Christmas. Let us plan a good time for us to get together. Love, Aunt Kate
My Aunt Kate created personalized birthday cards and collages as she did for other my family members. I enjoyed each and every one. Below is one such example with me sitting around a campfire with the spirits of my Dad and Grandfather, roasting marshmallows.
She also seemed to have an encyclopedic treasure trove of postcards from her many, many trips, filling file cabinets and storage compartments in her basement on George Street. If she didn’t create an original birthday or holiday card, she would often peruse her extensive collection of postcards, or digital library, and find just the right one for me. In my case, those postcards featured images of what interested me like jazz music, Mexico, Spain, literary figures, as well as paintings of fish and fishmongers, since I had worked in the family fish business with my Aunt Kate’s brother and father, those being my Dad and grandfather.
We both subscribed to The New Yorker, so often discussed art shows and movies reviews in its pages. She was an attentive listener as well as an astute observer of the zeitgeist, or “the defining spirit or mood of our time.” We discussed family updates, travel plans, politics, restaurants, and meals shared. Even after I learned that she had passed away, I wanted to call her to see if her spirit would magically answer, just so we could discuss just one more upcoming art show together.
She loved traveling, as I did. Below is a photo of my Aunt Kate and cousin Laura Baldwin when they visited me in New York City, back when I lived and worked there. We’re in the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center in May of 2001. Just four months later, terrorists attacked the City on 9/11 and those very same towers came tumbling down. And so, our visit together became all the more poignant and meaningful.
My Aunt Kate and I rendezvoused for lunches in Greektown or in the loop, sometimes while I was on my way into or out of town via Union Station. I’ll never forgot one day we spent together after I took the Amtrak down from Milwaukee. She had arranged a day of visiting her friends who worked in museums and art galleries. I must have been in my early college days, considering what to do with my life. I distinctly remember visiting Carol Turchan at the Chicago History Museum, which at the time was called the Chicago Historical Society. She explained what she did as a photo conservator and together, on that day, they opened my eyes to all of the creative careers that I previously didn’t even know existed. And as such, she was a teacher and a mentor to me.
My Aunt Kate taught art classes at a number of institutions during her career. One of her former students shared this memory on my Aunt Kate’s obituary page in May 2025:
“Kathryn was my art history instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. I loved her survey classes. She was so supportive of me. I still have the sketchbook she gifted me before I went to Europe after graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I am grateful to her.”
My Aunt Kate’s artwork really pushed the limits. It often featured colorful mythological or historical references, family, women in history, and impressions from her travel. It reimagines past and present, projecting ideas into the future. When I read her artist statement today, it seems more relevant than ever as artificial intelligence creeps into our society: “I hope to elicit ambivalence, tension and fears with the complexity of the accelerated pace of life today.”
When she reinvented her own identity, as an artist, she signed her paintings with the last name of our ancestors, Kucera, as it was spelled when our family arrived to Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Art and even life itself are like a frozen grape. Something familiar can become something strange and new, if you choose to look at it in a new way. You can reinvent how you see the world or change the way you are perceived, like changing your last name. And that’s what my Aunt Kate taught me.
To learn more about her, you can read this toast that I wrote for her 90th birthday party – Celebrating a Lifetime of Creativity: My Aunt Kathryn Kucera Turns 90. Or better yet, you can see her collages on permanent exhibit at the Mount Prospect Public Library (10 S Emerson St, Mt Prospect, IL 60056).
