Karen Wilkinson

     Karen Kay Wilkinson was born on March 21, 1940, in a farmhouse near Mondamin, Iowa, to Kenneth and Winifred (Voss) King. After graduating from Mondamin High School, Karen furthered her education at Iowa State, joining the Delta Delta Delta sorority. One of her more memorable moments at Iowa State occurred in 1960, following a speech at the Memorial Union by the Rev. Martin Luther King. The president of her sorority asked Dr. King if he had any plans for dinner. He replied, “As a matter of fact, I don’t,” so Karen found herself dining with Dr. King at the Tri-Delta house that evening.

     She was united in marriage to Donn Hammitt on a very hot July 23, 1960, at the First Lutheran Church in Missouri Valley, Iowa. They had one son, Mark. After spending a few years in Lincoln, Nebraska, they settled in Marshalltown, Iowa. She was a devoted wife and, in the estimation of her son and more than a few of his friends, the quintessential mother.

     After Donn died in a car accident in 1981, Karen went back to Iowa State and earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting, then worked as a credit analyst at Fidelity Brenton Bank. She later married Jim Wilkinson; they made their home in Door County, Wisconsin, with a winter home in Summerville, South Carolina. In Door County, Karen worked at the local Land Trust and the Ridges nature preserve — fitting for someone whose first word was “flower.”

     Karen enjoyed music, bridge, cooking, tennis, and travel. She was an accomplished pianist and was partial to powerful works by Rachmaninoff and Chopin. One of Karen’s most ardent passions was the music and theology of the various Lutheran churches she belonged to. She was a founding member of Our Savior Lutheran in Marshalltown. At whatever church she joined, she loved singing in the choir and attending Bible study.

     Karen died on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, at the Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. She had moved to Huntsville two years prior to be near her family.

     Karen was preceded in death by her parents and her husbands, Donn Hammitt and Jim Wilkinson. She is survived by her son, Mark Hammitt, and his wife Lisa, of Huntsville; grandsons, Ethan and Archer; brother, Karol King, and his wife Rozanne King, of Mondamin; niece, Alisha Dreyer, and her husband Michael, of West Des Moines, Iowa; stepsons, Wiley (Denise) and Wes Wilkinson; and many cousins, step-grandchildren, and friends.