Kay deLoach Barlow

Graveside services for Josephine Kershaw “Kay” deLoach Barlow will be held at 12:30 PM at 713 Meeting Street, Camden, SC, on Friday, November 29, 2024, at Quaker Cemetery. Rev. Pickett Wall will officiate.  Memorials may be made to Historic Camden Foundation, 222 Broad Street, Camden, SC, 29020.

Kay passed away on November 22, 2024.  The daughter of the late Serre D. and Mary Kershaw “Molly” Blackwell deLoach. Kay grew up as an army brat and graduated from high school in Columbus, Georgia. She attended the University of South Carolina, later graduating from Shippensburg State College, Pennsylvania, and earning her Masters of Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

In 1958, she married Keith Andrew Barlow, an army officer, at Grace Episcopal Church in Camden, SC. Together, they bestowed their love of singing and dancing on their three children: Andy, Maryann, and Betsy. After moving 18 times in their 56 years of marriage, Kay and Keith returned to Camden, where Kay, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest psychotherapist”, focused her efforts on solving the world's problems (and those of everyone she met). With her ample energy, she redecorated her house on a nearly daily basis, keeping her children busy moving furniture on every visit.

Kay’s delicate stature housed a boundless personality and an unmatched joie de vivre. She approached her life with courage and an unending sense of adventure – whether moving to Germany as a newlywed at 20 years old, raising children while her husband fought in Vietnam, evacuating her family from the Iranian revolution, returning to university as an adult to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, starting her own psychotherapy business, caring for her husband as he battled dementia, or facing her own mortality – she faced each challenge with Napoleonic grit and an unending sense of humor.

The best advice given to Kay was when her father told her to "think before you speak." Like most of us, she was far better at giving advice than receiving it.

Kay is survived by her children, Keith Andrew “Andy” Barlow, Jr. (Nancy Daley), Maryann Kershaw Barlow Dartnell (Devon), Elizabeth Serre Barlow Deane (Will); grandchildren, Amanda Serre Boswell (Will), Malin Savannah Dartnell (Teddy Hogan), Camilla Wakayama Dartnell (Kyle); great-granddaughter, Georgia Serre Dartnell-Hogan; sister, Charlotte Douglas Riley (Joe), and brother in law, Frederick “Fritz” Rench.

Kay was predeceased by a sister, Mary Martin Rench.

Kornegay Funeral Home, Camden Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.

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