Barbara Mae Katz (Ginden), beloved wife, mother, grandmother, teacher and lifelong member of the Kansas City Jewish community, was born on Feb. 15, 1946, and passed away on Sept. 1, 2026.
Barbara was preceded in death by her parents, Samuel and Ellen Ginden; her brother, Jerome Ginden; and her beloved husband, Michael Katz.
A lifelong Kansas Citian, Barbara attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, where she earned a degree in mathematics and was a member of Sigma Delta Tau sorority. She began a teaching career that would span more than three decades as a high school math teacher at Southwest High School.
During those early teaching years, Barbara was introduced to Michael. After a whirlwind romance, they married on July 27, 1975. They welcomed their son Joshua Scott four years later, followed by Seth Jeremy in 1982.
After Southwest closed, Barbara continued teaching mathematics at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. She also tutored students and taught mathematics part time at Avila University. While her sons attended the University of Kansas, Barbara served as advisor to KU’s chapter of Sigma Delta Tau.
Barbara was warm, welcoming and eternally optimistic. She wanted people to be happy, included and, most importantly, to know they were loved. She rarely had a bad thing to say about anyone and was happiest when she could bring people together.
That was especially true around her dining room table. Barbara loved hosting family for Jewish holidays, and it was not uncommon for more than 20 people to somehow squeeze into her small dining room for a Passover Seder. An accomplished cook, her Passover specialties included homemade gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, kosher-for-Passover sherbet and strawberry shortcake.
Judaism was woven throughout Barbara’s life. A multigenerational member of Congregation Beth Shalom, she attended the same synagogue as an adult that she had as a child. She regularly attended Shabbat and festival services and was a founding member of Beth Shalom’s Kiddush Corps. She was also a member of the synagogue’s inaugural adult b’nai mitzvah class, proudly celebrating a milestone she had not had the opportunity to experience as a 12-year-old girl.
Barbara had plenty of passions outside the classroom and synagogue. She loved mahjongg and played regularly with a group of friends. She and Michael held Theater League season tickets with close friends for many years and enjoyed evenings at the theater until Michael’s declining mobility made them no longer possible.
She was also proudly and enthusiastically a Trekkie who devoured Star Trek novels so quickly that she kept a handwritten log to make sure she didn’t read the same one twice. She loved mysteries, including “Perry Mason,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Matlock” and “Columbo.” The mathematician in her never retired either. Before dementia made them impossible, she regularly worked the New York Times crossword and Sudoku.
Above all, Barbara loved her family. She lived to see both sons marry and delighted in her four grandchildren. Joshua and his wife, Leslie, gave her Andrew and Ilanna, and Seth and his wife, Rachel, gave her Theodore and Ezra.
Barbara’s devotion to family was perhaps most evident during Michael’s long illness with peripheral neuropathy. She cared for him at home, managing his feeding tube, medications and other needs. When he eventually required nursing home care, Barbara spent as much time there as possible, routinely sleeping on a cot in his room so he would not have to be alone. She truly embodied the promise of “in sickness and in health.”
In her later years, dementia slowly took many of the things that had once come so easily to Barbara. It could not, however, erase the warmth, optimism and love that had always defined her.
Her family is deeply grateful to those who cared for Barbara during her final years, particularly The Atriums of Overland Park, ComForCare, Brookdale and Ascend Hospice.
Barbara leaves behind her sons, Joshua Katz (Leslie) and Seth Katz (Rachel); her grandchildren, Andrew, Ilanna, Theodore and Ezra; and extended family, friends, former students and members of the Kansas City Jewish community whose lives she touched.
She will be remembered as a gifted teacher, devoted wife, loving mother and grandmother, woman of deep Jewish faith, enthusiastic Trekkie, wonderful cook and, most of all, someone who spent her life making room at the table for one more person.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions in Barbara’s memory to Congregation Beth Shalom.
