Pamela Cross Kielhack

The real Painter of Light, Pamela Cross Kielhack, passed away Tuesday morning, October 24th, 2023 in the deep, loving presence of those she held most dear: her husband Steve, daughter Sarah and son Aaron. Her passing was a swift, unexpected and inscrutable whirlwind, and only time will return any sense of equilibrium to those she left. We are comforted that her last conscious experience was of her weekly Monday studio painting class led by life-long friend Mary Alice.

Pam’s “life well-lived” began in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. She would have been 77 on Thanksgiving (she was expecting a cake in addition to pies) and we feel she had so much more life to live. She adored her parents and siblings and things were pretty much ideal in the big, salmon-colored house of her childhood. She attended the Dana Hall School later and was a real-life debutante, if you can believe it from her well-worn, about-town and paint-covered artist togs. She studied studio art and education at the University of Denver.

When in Colorado she met her soulmate Steve, another great iconoclast, hailing from North Dakota, a world away from New England. At first sight of her in the Galena Street East, this scruffy, CU- Boulder drop-out, Aspen ski patrol member who lived in a bus and cooked in a coffee-can hot pot (who also happens to be one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet) gathered the courage to ask her in a funny, manufactured accent whether she wanted to twist, and the rest was history. They celebrated 55 years of marriage and mutual devotion this Fall.

Pam always had her feet in two different worlds. She had a deep and abiding respect for her parents’ generation, “The Greatest Generation,” her father’s service in World War II, and the New England traditions she grew up with. But she was also a child of her times, the mid-60’s Zeitgeist: a free-thinker with a devil-may-care attitude towards convention (though always with good manners).

Upon Steve being drafted into the Army and leaving Aspen, they were both shipped to Germany in 1968, learning that Catch-22 was not merely fiction. Steve got to play with large weapons and became a middling typist; Pam clipped a few recipes from Playboy that would become family favorites, dealt with hedge-hogs and suffered first-hand through Germany’s post-war infrastructure struggles and general lack of heat and hot water.

After an honorable discharge and looking for a new adventure, they moved to the Lower Cape in 1970 where Aaron was immediately born, and they never left. Sarah followed in a few years. For people who didn’t even plan on having children, Pam and Steve had just the right touch. Pam was a nurturer of her two little sidekicks, maintaining her organic gardens, pickling and cooking, sowing the seeds for some of Sarah’s life-long interests (such as “Perfect Pam’s Perfect Pickles”). Their only requirement was that their kids be fair, kind, decent and interesting people- they came of age when status was still a four letter word in Chatham. As the logical choice for someone that grew up in North Dakota, Steve became a shell and then a ground fisherman, eventually having one of the biggest boats in Chatham Harbor, the F/V Aaron & Sarah. Pam was his trusty home-base radio correspondent, a voice of solace as a salve to the perils of the sea: “Aaron & Sarah, this is Phantom Fish. Do you read me over?” After getting out of fishing and raising the kids, Pam and Steve had many adventures, including hauling the slide-in camper around the US: the plains of North Dakota; visiting Sarah in Seattle, Mount Rainier, and the Yakima Valley in Washington. Pam enjoyed spending time at her ancestral family property in rural Barnard, VT. As further evidence of her eclectic interests, Pam was a dead-eye, shooting cans off a make-shift firewood range at “Grouse House!” Pam and Steve were right there in Carlisle, PA when Sarah’s son, their first grandchild, Nils, was born. Pam thrived as a grandmother, “Moo-moo,” being more concerned with fun and play than discipline or rules.

Pam had no enemies and countless friends, close or casual, from near and far. She lived by the Golden Rule, which her parents had cultivated. Eccentric, independent and quirky herself, she lacked pretensions and didn’t judge; hated conflict; relished low-key, small acts of kindness; and never spoke ill of others. She saw things, as an artist, differently; the deliberateness of choosing unconventional subjects or presenting common things in unconventional ways; the manipulation of or surrender to light; shadow play; and the unlimited possibilities in our single spectrum of colors.

Diagnosed at age 40 with Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT), a hereditary, degenerative, neuromuscular disease, Pam became a CMT warrior and fought back against the muscle weakness in her hands and feet, with the stiff upper lip of a true anglophile. Until her last day on Earth, she continued to paint despite the increasing difficulty of grasping her brushes.

Pam was predeceased by her beloved parents, Norman C. Cross and Sally Manny Cross, and siblings Norman C. Cross, Jr. and Lizzie Cross Mellen (I’m sure she is singing Kingston Trio songs with them now). She is survived by her true love, husband Steven Whiting Kielhack of Chatham; adoring son Aaron C. Kielhack (Diana) of Bismarck, ND and daughter Sarah Whiting Idman (Jon) of Harwich; adoring grandchildren Lillian, Giselle and Winston Kielhack of Bismarck, ND and Nils Norman Idman and Annika Lizzie Idman of Harwich; her older sister she always looked up to Sallie Cross Kingham and brother-in-law John Kingham of Yardley, PA; sister-in-law Cynthia Cross of New Haven, CT; niece Eva Breneman of Chicago, IL; nephews Reed Breneman of Carrboro, NC, Douglas Kattlick Kingham of Twickenham, England, and James Kingham of Maplewood, NJ; nephews Dr. Campbell Cross of Brooklyn, NY and Cole Cross of New Haven, CT; and many loving and loved cousins and great nieces and nephews.

We’d like to avoid calling out any one of her legion of friends as her “closest, “longest” or the like, so as to avoid any slights. Pam had special, personal relationships with all her friends. You know you were loved.

The family would like to thank Chatham Fire and the unbelievably compassionate nurses at Cape Cod Hospital, Mugar 4th floor, especially Nurse Sara.

Visitation will be held at Chapman Funerals & Cremations, Blute Chapel, 678 Main St. Harwich on Friday, December 29 from 3-5 pm. Burial will be private.

Pam, in the ways of her parents, was a great philanthropist, sometimes in very small and personal ways. There are so many great organizations on Cape Cod to donate in her memory, but the Chatham Children’s Fund c/o Monomoy Community Services, the Sampson Fund, and the Creative Arts Center in Chatham were always near to her heart. Remember to support your local artists and buy art, and always eat dessert.

There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

― Vincent van Gogh

Notes of comfort may be made to her family at www.chapmanfuneral.com