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Beloved sister, aunt, great-aunt, cousin and friend Karen Kennedy Bassichis passed away on April 17, 2025 from complications of lung cancer. She was a warm, loving, caring, kind, witty, elegant, energetic independent person who will be sorely missed.
She was born in 1950 to Ova and Gordon Kennedy in southern California. The 6-member family moved to a farm in northwest Missouri in 1952. Karen grew up driving tractors, growing vegetables to eat and to can, picking strawberries, beans, tomatoes and other vegetables, pitching hay, detasseling corn plants, picking and shucking corn, hoeing gardens as big as fields, and raising cattle and hogs.
Karen graduated from high school with a class of 17, then attended and graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in 1972. After teaching for a year, she moved to California to be near her twin sisters and found a job in the defense industry. She worked for Varian for several years, but for the majority of her working life, Karen was an analyst at Hughes Aircraft (now Boeing). Her responsibilities included acting as a courier delivering top secret documents between Hughes and defense executives in Washington, D.C.
Karen met her first husband Tom Spillane at Varian. They married in 1985 and were happy together, but their years of married bliss were cut short by Tom’s death in 1992 from diabetes complications.
Karen’s second husband James Bassichis was a friend Karen and Tom had developed at a local “Cheers” bar. After Karen bumped into James some years later, they began to date, the question was popped, and in 1996 Karen married James in a ceremony in Las Vegas attended by his and her family and friends.
Their marriage thrived, and both became more social and concerned with developing their relationships with family and friends. In fact, one of Jim’s nieces stated that Jim became a better man after his marriage. James was Jewish, Karen was not, and it was never a problem. Karen participated with enthusiasm in bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, seders, and other important ceremonies.
In 1998, James retired from TRW and finally persuaded Karen to retire from Hughes so they could travel. James was an experienced traveler; Karen was a homebody. Initially reluctant, Karen began to truly enjoy traveling. They took cruises, bus tours, river tours, and independently visited many locales throughout the world and the USA. They bypassed the restaurants at stops along the way and instead sampled the offerings and met the locals at many pubs or bars. One of their favorite places was Angor Wat in Cambodia, with its temples and long-lived trees. They visited the Louvre in Paris many times. They schemed to visit Death Valley on the hottest day. Ireland and Iceland received them more than once. During their many travels, they made time to stop and share a meal or a drink with friends and relatives along the way and even out of the way. Karen and James temporarily moved back to the Midwest and lovingly cared for her mother and father during their final days. Karen’s beloved husband James passed away in 2022.
Karen was born with red hair and maintained that color her entire life, even after taunts in school like “I’d rather be dead than red.” She even enjoyed the nickname “Big Red.” She was the baby of the family, and constantly made her siblings laugh even when they didn’t want to. Many people considered Karen their best friend. She enjoyed having Saturday morning coffee with her sisters and friends and then going to a movie. She enjoyed walking on the beach with friends, shopping for something to wear for a special occasion, dining and people-watching in restaurant patios, and having an after-work drink with close friends. She was an incredible record keeper. She kept Day-Timer diaries after her move to California until two months before she passed. Friends and relatives turned to her to nail down the dates of important events.
Karen is survived by her twin sisters Mary and Ruth Kennedy, her brother James (wife Dorothy) her nephews Ryan (wife Allison) and Kurt (wife Hannah) and great-nephew Ethan, brother-in law William Bassichis (wife Yudith), nephews-in-law Benjamin Bassichis (wife Michelle) and Daniel Bassichis, niece-in-law Karen Saland (husband Kenneth), and by numerous other Bassichis family in-laws and Kennedy family cousins. She was preceded in death by her parents Ova and Gordon Kennedy, and husbands Thomas Spillane and James Bassichis.
Karen’s interment will be at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery, where her late husband James lies. Date and time will be determined later.
In lieu of flowers, you may send check donations made out to North Andrew Scholarship Foundation. The address is North Andrew High School, 9120 Hwy 48, Rosendale, MO 64483. Write Karen Kennedy Bassichis Memorial Scholarship Fund on the memo line or write a separate letter specifying that the donation is to the Karen Kennedy Bassichis Memorial Scholarship Fund.
