A long-time Summerland resident was instrumental in numerous conservation efforts through the province.
Catherine Reed (Katy) Madsen, who died July 7 at the age of 96, was born in Palo Alto, Calif., but lived in Summerland from 1964 to 1993.
She and her family moved to the community when her husband Harold became head of entomology at the Summerland Research Station.
Soon, she became involved in conservation efforts, including the creation of the Okanagan Similkameen Parks Society.
She was also a founding director of the Sierra Club of B.C. in 1969.
Over the years, Madsen worked on numerous issues, including the successful campaign to create Cathedral Provincial Park.
She was almost single-handedly responsible for the long moratorium on uranium mining in the province.
In 2013, she received the Queen’s Jubilee Medal in recognition of her longstanding commitment to conservation in British Columbia.
Madsen’s self-designed and screen-printed T-shirts protested the provincial government’s use of pesticides in Okanagan Lake. The shirts featured an angry Ogopogo, rearing out of the water in protest.
Later, Madsen divided her time between Palo Alto, Calif. where she care for her mother, and Victoria where she moved in 1993.
She allowed her yard in Victoria to become as wild as possible, to accommodate the many birds that visited her feeders.
Madsen was also an accomplished artist.
An award-winning portrait painter in oils and pastels, she also taught art classes. She was also active politically in the art world and helped to establish two juried art shows for abstract and representational art for the state of California.
In the 1950s, she was featured as an artist in a California newspaper with a headline proclaiming, “And she cooks too.” Members of her family say the tuna casserole recipe accompanying the article was fabricated, since she was not known for her kitchen skills.
Members of her family remember her as someone who was always accepting of others, a model of non-judgement as unwavering as her own unwillingness to compromise.
She was predeceased by her brother Malcolm, son Bob, and grandson Errol; and survived by her daughter Carol, son Ken, and daughter-in-law Barbara; grandchildren Katrina, Vanessa, Sabina, Kirsten, Polly and Malkolm, and great-grandchildren Nikhil, Savita, Sevelin, Samantha, Emily, Salix, Coco and Clementine.