Madelyn Kathleen (Kathy) Clements

Madelyn Kathleen Clements, born on a Saturday afternoon to a housewife (Henrietta) and a milkman (Billy), I would become the middle child of five and the favorite to my mother. A chubby, blonde-haired girl after two rambunctious boys was just what she wanted and had to be named Kathy just because she liked that name. My older brothers, Aubry and Joel, couldn’t say Kathy, so they called me Nawnee for a while. Joel died sadly in 2010.

I have a younger brother, Mark, and a younger sister, Laura. My mother remarried when I was ten years old, then John Clements became my dad.

My mother spoiled me and loved me immensely until her death in 2004. She supported me during big decisions and helped mold me into the independent person I was. She believed that I would become a graphic designer even before there was a hiring classification for it. She taught me to be self-reliant. My dad spoiled me too, but he thought becoming a flight attendant would be my best career path. He was wrong about that, I’m glad to say…but his advice about taking typing classes in high school was spot on.

With a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia in 1982, I began my art career as a layout artist for a retail store in Macon, Georgia. I loved my next job as a graphic artist for a small ad agency, also in Macon. I worked briefly with a dive equipment retailer doing mailers, then a commercial printer before moving to Rome in 1996 to work at the local newspaper as creative services director. A few years with another print shop, then in 2001 it was on to my final position in Rome with Berry College as graphic designer.

I had 12 separate addresses, seven jobs and ten different cars in my lifetime. I traveled to eight countries but lived only in Georgia, a native to Griffin. I bicycled around the island of Bora Bora and dove the Great Barrier Reef. I was an excellent roller skater and a decent tennis player. I enjoyed painting, home improvement, and decorating the front yard for Halloween. One year I had 679 trick-or-treaters!

I never married and had no children, but I was a pet parent to five dogs through my later years, one of them was actually my neighbor’s dog. I was a parent of sorts to my dad for three years before he died in my arms in 2009.

I was lucky to have had five true friends and I was lucky-in-love three times. I should have been, and hope I was, appreciative of all the people who have loved me and influenced me during my lifetime.

Even though metastatic breast cancer consumed me, I lived a good life and have no regrets except one. I wish I’d taken better care of my teeth as a kid. If I could have magically changed one thing – I would have been taller.

Visitation will be Monday, November 25, 2019 from 6pm until 8 pm at Conner-Westbury Funeral Home. A graveside funeral service will be Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 1:30 pm in the new section of Oak Hill Cemetery. In lieu of flowers contribution may be made to and animal recuse or Dolly Good Puppy.

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