Kathryn Weeks McCrory, 96, passed away at Oak Park Rehabilitation Center in Auburn, Alabama on Jan. 27, 2021. She was born on Feb. 13, 1924, grew up most of her life in Birmingham, Alabama and graduated from Ensley High School. During the Great Depression, her family relocated to a farm in Yukon, Tennessee for a period of time. Although things were difficult those years, being the positive person that she was, she fondly recalled much about her experiences growing up.
While accompanying her sister-in-law to visit her brother, in pilot training during WW II, Kathryn met James Howard “Alabama” McCrory, also a pilot-trainee, and a few months later, during a return trip, Kat and Bama were married in Chickasha, Oklahoma on Christmas Day, 1943. Bama was deployed to fly a C-47 in the India, Burma, China theater of WWII, where he was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal for meritorious service during the war. Kathryn returned to Birmingham and lived with her parents until the end of the war.
She was a long-time member of First Baptist Church of Opelika where she was active in Sunday School and Women’s Missionary Union. She enjoyed traveling with her children, reading western novels, doing word puzzles and bird watching.
She was preceded in death by her hard-working husband of almost 60 years, James Howard McCrory, her loving parents, Robert W. and Mary Wortham Weeks, two brothers, Cecil Amuel Weeks (Rose) and Ralph Lamar Weeks (Ann). She was also preceded in death by a grandson, Robert “Eddie” McCrory, a Montgomery police officer.
Kathryn is survived by five children: Thomas E. McCrory (Doris), Johns Creek, Georgia; James L. McCrory, Sr. (Carol), Opelika; Virginia M. Walton (Charles), Beauregard; Robert H. McCrory (Katrinka), Montgomery; and William A. McCrory (Linda), Tallassee.
Also surviving Kathryn are 15 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, 11 great-great grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Her family is very grateful for the wonderful care and concern that has been shown by so many friends and members of the clergy and the medical community of the Auburn-Opelika area.
Interment will be next to the grave of her husband and near many McCrory family ancestors also buried in Pine Flat Cemetery, Forest Home, Butler County, Alabama.
