Obituary of Karen Thomas

There will be no formal services for Karen Thomas, 85, of Arnolds Park.

Karen Thomas of Arnolds Park, IA, suffered a stroke in her home on April 23, 2024, and passed away in a hospital in Sioux Falls, SD, on April 29 around 3:30 pm. She was just shy of 86 years old.

Karen Annette Thomas was born on June 8, 1938, in Elk Point, SD, the daughter of John Harold “Tommy” Thomas, the town pharmacist, and Carolyn Louise Thomas, née Carolyn Douglass. The first of two siblings, her younger sister Julie Wren Thomas was born eight years later on June 19, 1946. The sisters shared a close lifelong bond.

Karen studied piano for many years in her youth and later played clarinet in her high school marching band. On Sundays she was organist for the Congregational church in Elk Point. She completed a couple years of undergraduate coursework at South Dakota State University in Brookings before marrying Dale Richard McCullough on June 28, 1958, and having three children, Kevin Richard McCullough (1959), Mark Steven McCullough (1960), and Lissa Jean McCullough (1962). In the early years they made their home in California and Oregon.

In 1966, Karen moved with her family to Ann Arbor, MI, where she worked in secretarial, medical transcribing, and administrative positions. A creative free spirit in the 1960s and 1970s, she played guitar and sang, was involved in co-creating a hand-printed literary magazine, and volunteered in the props department for local Ann Arbor theater productions. Outside of full-time work to support her family, in her free time she loved reading, haunting the local public library, playing Scrabble, attending Shakespeare performances and musical concerts, and conversing with interesting friends for hours.

Karen remarried in 1973, and in 1979 relocated from Ann Arbor to Arnolds Park, IA, where she resided for the rest of her life. She resumed her undergraduate education with a major in Anthropology at Le Mars College in the 1980s. After a second divorce she remained in place beside Lake Okoboji, a happy solitaire with an eclectic social circle. For decades she was a dedicated supporter of Iowa and Minnesota public radio.

Beloved neighbors, friends, and family would drop in at her lakeside cottage through the years. Her easy-going unconventional sense of life, her wry humor and offbeat levity, her facility with words and delight in language and good writing, and her unusual gift for listening and hearing what others are going through were special qualities that drew a wide variety of friends in the different phases of her life. Karen always cared about others, and demonstrated heartfelt sympathy by lending a thoughtful and attentive ear.

Karen is cherished by dozens who had the privilege to call her a dear friend, dear mother, dear sister, dear auntie, dear grandma, and dear adopted family member. She is survived by her sister Julie, her three children Kevin, Mark, and Lissa, her five grandchildren Anna, James, Lucas, Michael, Paul, her two nieces Carrie and Sarah, her great niece Bethany and son Arthur, and the whole Fletcher clan.

Karen is loved as she herself loved, with a generous open heart that keeps reaching out without limit because there’s simply nothing to stop it…our inspiration, our blessing, still living in us.