Kay O'Driscoll

Kay O’Driscoll quietly departed this world the day before Easter, after 87 years of loving and caring for everyone around her.

Kay Lucille Rich entered life humbly, born in the family home in Richville, Utah, to Dean and Pearl Rich. She learned empathy and love from her parents and siblings, Ivan, Carolyn, and Jeanne. She recently reminisced about the excitement she experienced when an addition to the childhood home eliminated the need to visit an outhouse.

Mom’s drive for excellence propelled her to notable accomplishments, like singing the leads in school operas and solos with the choir. She sang a solo for Eleanor Roosevelt when the former First Lady visited the University of Utah’s Kingsbury Hall in November 1953. Mom’s talent on the cornet led to full musical scholarships anywhere in the state. She happily declined them all to achieve her highest goal—to marry and start a family.

Mom wed her high school sweetheart, Jack O’Driscoll, but not until she had many fun-spirited dates and flirting episodes purposefully planned to make her boyfriend jealous. Despite her deep love for Jack, Mom cried driving out of Utah following her wedding reception to start their new life together because she had never left the state or been far away from her family. Mom demonstrated her resolve and determination over the years in many ways, but she set the bar high by learning to drive and passing her driving test in a manual transmission vehicle on the hilly streets of San Francisco.

Her wish to start a family came quickly when Stan arrived a little more than nine months following her LDS Temple marriage in Salt Lake City. Kay admitted she had no idea how to be a mom at 19. She was scared and far from the rest of her family, but she and Dad showered love on Stan as they grew together. Dean joined the home two years later, and Jeff a year after that, as the growing family moved multiple times in the Bay Area east of Oakland. Mom loved being a homemaker and mother and took great pride in both.

Work moved the family from California to New Jersey. Like a trooper, Mom embraced the adventure, prepared the kids for new churches and schools, new scenery, sites, and historic landmarks on the east coast. She and Dad gave their best to three boys under the age of seven.

Mom welcomed the daughter she’d had dreamed of in New Jersey, and she was ecstatic to move the family back to Utah 11 years after they had started their cross-country adventure. They wanted their kids to enjoy their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Returning to Morgan, they built the house they would live in for the next six decades.

Though family was always her top priority, Kay enjoyed a fulfilling and successful career. For more than 25 years, she managed large accounts at Browning Arms, headquartered in Morgan. She shocked the Browning boys who invited her to shoot targets. After she outshot them all, they never invited her for an encore performance.

Mom led by example. No matter how others treated her, she always responded with kindness. She was a caregiver at heart, patient, and exemplary, and often hard to emulate. In the family, when the boys gave her plenty of reasons to lose her cool, she spoke softly and filled the house with the pleasing aromas of her mostly recipe-free cooking. The LDS Church was always a priority in mom’s life, and she shared it freely with family, neighbors, and others. She served in many capacities but enjoyed primary the most. She and dad served many years in the Ogden temple and a mission in Florida.

Mom had longed to rejoin loved ones who had left this life before her, including her husband Jack, his parents Gale and Ida O’Driscoll, her sister Carolyn, her brother Ivan, and their parents Dean and Pearl Rich. She often prayed for a joyful reunion with her son Stan, who left close to 53 years ago, and more recently her grandson Ian, and her granddaughter Rachel. Mom often lamented the fact that most of her longtime friends had already departed and she couldn’t wait to see them again as well.

Mom left behind many family members, including her sister Jeanne Fry (Wayne), sons Dean and Jeff (Sheila), daughter Michelle (Keith Gleason), grandkids Jeremy, Joseph, Jacob, Rebecca, Lucy, Michael, Kenyon and Abigale. She also loved to see and enjoy the smiles of her seven great-grandchildren.

Mom exited this life peacefully with family at her side and in the house she had made into a home.

Funeral services will be held Friday, April 10, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. at the Milton Church House (1255 N Morgan Valley Dr., Morgan, UT 84050). A visitation will be held prior to the services from 10:00-10:45 a.m.