KANE, Pamela S. (1946-2004)

KANE, KRAUSE, HOPKINS

Posted By: Paul Nagy, volunteer (email)
Date: 2/10/2010 at 20:49:59

Pamela S. Kane - July 17, 1946 - Sept. 5, 2004

Wilmington - September 6, 2004

The house is quiet today. Pamela Kane, author, mother, friend, lover, left for her final journey yesterday morning.

Pam was born on a farm in Charles City, Iowa, on July 17, 1946, the eldest child of Marvin and Irma Krause. She always said you could take the girl out of the farm but never the farm out of the girl. Her last trip was a short Sunday drive through the Amish farm country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Pam liked to joke that she was the first of the "Baby Boomers" and indeed she was born just 10 months after the end of World War II, when Marvin was discharged from the Army.

Pam graduated from Charles City High School in 1964, and if she wasn't the prettiest girl in the class, I would like to see the other contenders. She recently completed a biography for the class's 40th reunion, but was unable to attend. Soon after Pam finished high school, Marvin and the family moved across state to Storm Lake, Iowa, where Pam attended Buena Vista College. Then, on to the University of Iowa. Pam moved east to Chicago where she became a flight attendant for United Airlines, barely making the height requirement.

From Chicago, she moved east again when United stationed her in the Baltimore/Washington area. After leaving the airline, Pam eventually worked for a law firm that transferred her to Wilmington, Delaware, where she put down her final roots.

It was in Wilmington that Pam met and married John F. Kane, an young executive with the DuPont Company. John and Pam moved to Puerto Rico where Elizabeth M. Kane was born in February, 1975. Two years later, they moved back to Wilmington just in time to welcome John T. Kane into the world on Mother's Day, 1977.

On August 28, 1988, we both tried it "The Second Time Around". I was working as a radio personality at WPEN in Philadelphia and Pam was a computer consultant during the early days of personal computing. I brought along with me Robert R. Hopkins, and Maxwell A. Hopkins. Pam always said that her last two kids were the easiest delivery; they came in a car that they drove themselves.

Shortly after our marriage, Pam quit consulting and began writing. Her first book, naturally, was about personal computers. V.I.R.U.S. Protection - Vital Information Resources Under Siege was published by Bantam Books in 1989. Eight other computer books followed including three books about the then new on-line service Prodigy.

Part of my job at WPEN was acting as a cruise host for one of our sponsor's. "Take a cruise with mid-day host Andy Hopkins and his wife." I had hosted two cruises before meeting Pam, but after we were married, she was always a bit reluctant to do it: "I don't want to be stuck on a boat with a bunch of your listeners". One day the sponsor pleaded that there was no one else to host a cruise to Bermuda on the Meridian in July and I convinced Pam to do it as a birthday cruise. That was the beginning of her long love afair with the sea, meeting a lot of wonderful people who where my listeners, and a new career as a travel writer. We often took three cruises a year with listeners and it got around that people had a great time with Pam Kane and her husband.

Pam began writing about our experiences, first in Porthole Magazine and then in other publications including Cruise Travel Magazine. In 1999 she published her first book on cruising Cruise Control. At about that same time, my radio career came to an end and so did the free cruise gravy train. Except for Celebrity Cruise Lines who treated us royally to several complimentary cruises; like everone else we had to actually pay for our vacations. This cut into the frequency of our travels, but not Pam's enthusiasm for the sea.

We took several memorable cruises with many of Pam's on-line friends. The "Red Stripe Mystery Cruise" with friends from Cruise @ddicts and the "Let's Get Leid" cruise with friends from CruiseMates. In February 2003, just the two of us took the small Grand Caribe for a cruise off the coast of Belize and Guatamala. As fate would have it, that was our last cruise together. Pam took two cruises alone on the nearby Chesapeake Bay in May and June, but was not feeling well on either trip. Upon returning to Wilmington she checked with a gastroenterologist and was diagnosed with liver disease. Her prospects were not good.

Undeterred by failing health she could always manage a smile and just "one more trip"; London for Thanksgiving 2003. She did not have a great time. The long plane ride was too much, but she didn't complain. Instead of sightseeing, she worked on the final edits of her newest book, Happy Sails, her second book about cruising.

In January 2004, the many horrible complications of a failing liver began to kick in as the toxins which are normally processed began circulating in her blood. As the winter slipped into spring she began to lose the ability to write and to come up with the right word or phrase. Her bouts with encephalopathy became more frequent and severe as spring faded to summer. Three trips to the hospital during the summer as she became weaker and weaker. On Tuesday the last day of August, instead of another trip to the hospital she began hospice care at home. On Wednesday the first day of September, she fell and fractured her pelvis. At about 4 am Sunday morning, September 5, 2004, she peacefully began her final cruise.

Bon Voyage, Pam
Author; Mother; Friend; Lover.

Addendum
Key West - March 11, 2005

We held a memorial service for Pam on September 13, 2004, at the Centerville Friends Meeting where we had exchanged vows just over 16 years before. Honoring her wishes to be cremated and have her ashes scattered at sea, six months later I took her to one of her favorite ports of call, Key West, Florida. There at 6:32 pm on the evening of March 11, 2005, as the sun sank behind a bank of low clouds, I bid her bon voyage.

Pamela S. Kane Biography
 

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