Polished businesswoman, adventuresome grandmother, civic leader, party lover with a quick wit.
Kathyrn Motz Hunter was all that and more.
Mrs. Hunter, 87, a longtime resident of Silver Lake who had moved to Hudson in 2010, died Saturday from complications related to a heart condition.
Her son David Hunter, a local attorney, said his mother worked hard in various area leadership roles over the years — including serving as a trailblazer for women — while never forgetting the necessity to have fun.
“There’s no single person who can fully appreciate it,” Hunter said. “She was either planning a party, or enjoying a party, or both.”
He recalled that about 10 years ago, his mother turned a family meeting over her upcoming heart surgery into a dinner party.
“She had a centerpiece on the table,” Hunter said. “It was all these flowers and had little toy medical things in it, like a little stethoscope.”
Mrs. Hunter, who served on the boards of many local organizations over the years, was the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award.
She had continued to hold the title of honorary chairwoman of family business Valley Savings Bank in Cuyahoga Falls.
David Hunter, the oldest of Mrs. Hunter’s three children, has been chairman of Valley Savings Bank since 1990, succeeding his father, John B. Hunter, who died that year. John and Kathryn Hunter had been married 44 years.
Mrs. Hunter’s daughter, Ann Durr, has been president of Valley Savings Bank since 2003.
Mrs. Hunter rarely missed the bank’s weekly executive committee meetings, attending her last one shortly before Thanksgiving. “She was sort of the institutional memory who would give us the long view of things,” David Hunter said.
Mrs. Hunter’s pioneering for professional women began when she was a young college graduate and bride in the 1940s. Her father, Clarence Motz, asked her to help out at one of his businesses — the Hudson Times weekly newspaper — and she ended up serving as the paper’s editor for 18 years. She also worked at her father’s Falls News weekly newspaper for a time.
David Hunter said his mother, though, was perhaps as equally proud of her work at the University of Akron. She earned her master’s degree in guidance counseling from the university in the 1960s and went on to teach a seminar course at UA for adult women interested in returning to school or work. She taught the class for 18 years.
“She found herself in this situation where she could inspire this whole generation of women to think about their potential in new and different ways,” David Hunter said.
Mrs. Hunter’s involvement with UA included serving on the school’s board of trustees from 1989 to 1996. Mrs. Hunter, a graduate of Buchtel High School, also served as a trustee for Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.
The local boards on which she served over the years are numerous, including the Akron Community Foundation, the United Way of Summit County, the Ohio Ballet, the Ohio Historical Society, the John S. Knight Center, International Institute of Akron, Summit Education Partnership and the American Red Cross.
She was a founding trustee of both E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall at the University of Akron and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
At board meetings and at home, Mrs. Hunter was known for taking great pride in her personal appearance. “You’d never go to her house and see her in a pair of sweatpants,” David Hunter noted.
All the while, he said, his mother put family first, taking pride in family members’ achievements.
He recalled how she loved taking her grandchildren on trips, including visits to historical sites and museums.
His daughter, Marie, now 29, was in middle school when Mrs. Hunter took her to Plains, Ga. There, the two attended the Sunday school class taught by former President Jimmy Carter.
Mrs. Hunter was preceded in death by her husband, John B. Hunter. She is survived by her three children, David (Margaret) of Silver Lake, James B. Hunter (Susan) of Cuyahoga Falls, and Ann Hunter Durr (James) of Silver Lake and six grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Dec. 23 on the campus of Western Reserve Academy in Hudson.
Memorials may be made in Mrs. Hunter’s honor to Akron Community Foundation, 345 W. Cedar St., Akron, OH 44307.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.