Arleen Kay Adair Platt

Kay, 83 years of age, was the beloved wife of Jerry for 58 years and mother of one son Greg. Kay was the only daughter of Dale and Hazel Adair of Quincy, Illinois.

Kay was a beautiful person, kind, loving, good humored, loved and respected by all those with whom she came in contact. Born in Keokuk Iowa, she was a graduate of Blessing Hospital School of Nursing in Quincy, Illinois. We met 61 years ago when she was a charge nurse at the University of Missouri Medical Center, and I was an orderly. From that point on, we were inseparable. During our marriage of 58 years we moved from Missouri to Georgia for graduate school, to Pennsylvania, where Greg was born, then to the Philadelphia/New Jersey area. Kay worked as a CCU/ICU nurse and hospital supervisor at a hospital in New Jersey for over a decade. We eventually retired to Florida. We then returned to Philadelphia and spent Winters in South Carolina until finally settling in Charleston.

Kay and I never stopped loving each other, and I cannot conceive of our having had a happier marriage overall, one that got better each year.  Kay was not only my best friend and confidant, but my trusted research clinic manager during our last years of work. When we retired, we spent as much time as we could in England and became intellectual partners in our avocation—seventeenth century English history.  During the last 25 years we researched and wrote four books together. 

Kay was devoted to our son Greg, a math teacher, and regularly and travelled with him to attend music festivals throughout the region—their joint passion. My greatest joy was sitting with Kay at breakfast each day, sharing interesting articles and book reviews with each other.  Hers was going out to dinner at nice restaurants where we would discuss our plans for our next trip to England, always including her favorite restaurant in the world—in London.

My last memory of Kay includes our holding hands, a kiss, and our ritual waving goodbye, a daily practice, on the evening before she passed away.

She will be sorely missed. May she rest in peace.

A private graveside funeral service was held on Monday, November 28, at 10:00 AM, at the Kahal Kadosh Brith Elohim Cemetery on Huguenin Avenue in Charleston.

Memorials in Kay’s honor may be made to the Salvation Army.