Mary Kathleen "Kathe" Tascone

Mary Kathleen (Kathe) Tascone passed away peacefully at home in Madison, Ohio, on February 16, 2023. Kathe was born in East Cleveland, Ohio, on November 2, 1940, to Elizabeth and John Fitzgerald. She spent her childhood in Ashtabula and graduated from St. John High School and later from St. Vincent School of Nursing in Erie, Pa. She served as an RN for most of her life, first as a hospital floor nurse, later as a home health care nurse, and finally as a teacher of LPNs at Ashtabula Vocational School. Kathe discovered her true passion in 1979 when she and a group of citizens formed The Friends of Rabbit Run Theater and worked to reopen the abandoned barn theater in Madison. Kathe performed at Rabbit Run, Willoughby Fine Arts, Maple Leaf, and other local theaters, often playing humorous and quirky characters. She loved holding the beat just right to get a laugh, though her favorite role was the more dramatic Annie Nations in Foxfire. Kathe never lost her sense of humor. “Is that you, Hector?” she’d say, joking about her own cognitive decline as result of Lewy Body dementia. Kathe loved traveling to see her children in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Wilmington, N.C., and Portland, Ore. She loved sarcasm, white wine, cast parties, planting flowers in her garden, and taking time to enjoy them; she loved using her outside voice inside; she loved sharing stories such as taking the train as a young girl from Ashtabula to Cleveland to shop at Higbee’s and May Co. and the time her father, who worked with the railroad, took her on the train to New York City when she was twelve. She loved telling the story of when she and a high school friend floated on innertubes so far out on the lake they got scarily close to an oar boat. She loved sharing stories about the patients she liked (and sometimes those she didn’t). She loved the Cavs and Guardians. She loved the music of Paul Simon and Beethoven; She loved maps, reading The New Yorker, and watching birds, especially cardinals. Mostly she loved her children, son Frank and his wife Kirsten Parkinson; daughter Molly and her husband Pete Martin, daughter Sarah, grandchildren Sophie Tascone and Chloe Martin, and sisters Christine Rodebaugh and Sharon Fitzgerald. She is preceded in death by her husband Frank. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Rabbit Run Community Arts Association or the Lewy Body Dementia Association. Interment Service will be 11:15 am Saturday, March 25, 2023 at St Bernard Cemetery in Bradford, PA, 16701. Celebration of Life is being planned for Saturday, July 22, 2023 at Rabbit Run Theater. Online obituary and condolences may be viewed at www.behmfuneral.com