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The obituary that ran for my mother was not what she wanted, nor was it accurate so I am writing this for her and for me.
She was born Kerry Anne Pryor on November 1,1942, the oldest child of James Vincent Pryor and Mary Valda Kramer Pryor. At a very young age, she contracted encephalitis which caused long-lasting damage to her memory and even though she amazingly learned to rewalk, retalk, and regain her childhood, she forever thought of herself as lesser because this damage. It was a lifelong tragic internalization of being considered other because of medical conditions. She was a survivor and saw that as a mixed blessing.
Her other siblings arrived quickly — Sue in 1943, followed by twins Bill and Howard in 1945. Kerry adored all of them whom she considered her best friends. Kerry was named by her father, allegedly after “County Kerry” where his Pryor ancestors were from (they were not.) Her middle name came from her maternal’ grandmother, Anna Marie Bliss Kramer. Kerry was raised Catholic and graduated from St. Francis Academy for Girls in Castle Shannon in 1962. She had a fond remembrance of her classmates and many of the nuns who instructed her — she had a lifelong disdain for purple because the nun who taught art told it was the “first color a baby reached for” at an age where she was determined to not be babied. She wasn’t a strong…
