Kathleen E. Aikins

Kathleen E. (Kae) McDonald Aikins, age 96, died peacefully on Friday September 9, 2017, at the Stonegates Health Care Center. She was born April 19, 1921 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, to Scottish immigrants Ewen and Annie McDonald.

After completing nurse’s training at the Grey Nun’s Hospital in Regina, she enlisted in the Canadian Navy and served in Nova Scotia as a Navy Nurse. She returned to the Grey Nuns Hospital as the operating room supervisor, where she met her husband, James P. (Jim) Aikins, MD. Married in 1947, she and Jim moved first to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and then in 1948 to Wilmington Delaware where they remained. For many years, Kae was a tireless volunteer for the Delaware Red Cross and the American Cancer Society. As a Red Cross nurse, she helped provide the first polio vaccines to Delaware children.
She and Jim were avid golfers, and they enjoyed the courses and friendships at the Wilmington Country Club, as well as those in their second home in Marco Island, Florida. While in Florida, they travelled weekly to Immokalee to help to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. Never content to sit on the sidelines, Kae had her own hard hat and tool belt and could hammer a nail with the best. She also made sure that each child in the families they were building homes for had a gift when they moved into the new home.

She and Jim spent many years travelling the world, from Antarctica to Asia, and the South Pacific to Europe. In 2000, they moved to the Stonegates retirement community in Greenville, where Kae lived until her death. Known as KK to all who loved her, she was a never-ending source of memorable one liners, like “woof woof.”

Kae was proud of her children, her Canadian and Scottish heritage, her service in the military, her volunteerism, her golf game, and her work as a nurse. Her family will miss her even as they gratefully acknowledge her long and full life.

Kae was preceded in death by her parents, her sister (Margaret McDonald Pickerill), and her beloved husband. She leaves her children Patty (Mark Owens), Joanie (Tom Fitzgerald), Kathy (Gary Thome), and Jim (Palma), 13 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.

Her children extend their sincere appreciation to the staff at Stonegates, particularly those in the health care unit, and to the staff at Home Instead.

In true KK spirit, we raise a glass to all who loved her and cared for her, and say “up your kilt.”