Booneville woman Kathleen Wilson remembered for family and church ties

Kathleen A. Wilson, 80, of Booneville, died at her residence Saturday, May 30, after a long illness, and her life was marked by the steady roles that often hold a small county together: wife, mother, homemaker and church member. Her obituary says she was born Sept. 14, 1945, to the late Garrett and Malvie Wright Shackelford and attended Beattyville Church of the Nazarene.

In Booneville and across Owsley County, where family names and church ties carry deep meaning, Wilson’s survivors sketch the circles she moved in every day. She is survived by her husband, Bruce Wilson of Booneville; her son, Ricky Joe Wilson of Booneville; four grandchildren, Katie Halsey, Cayley Land, Chloe Land and Layla Durbin; and three great-grandchildren, Blayne, Kade and Ava Halsey. Her brother, George Shackelford of Elizabethtown, also survives her, along with several nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

Her obituary also notes the family members who had gone before her, including her parents and several brothers and sisters. That kind of listing is more than a formality in Booneville, the county seat of Owsley County. In a place where the community is small enough that a single loss reaches across kinship lines, churches and cemeteries, a death notice becomes part of the county’s living memory.

Visitation was set for Thursday, June 4, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Searcy & Strong Funeral Home in Booneville. The funeral service was to follow at 3 p.m. with Brother Rick Isaacs officiating, and burial was to take place in Hardin-Wilson Cemetery in Booneville.

Owsley County itself was organized in 1843 and named for Judge William Owsley, and the Kentucky Historical Society says Boone’s Station was renamed Booneville when the county was formed. The county’s population has remained small, with 4,051 residents counted in the 2020 census and an estimated 3,932 in 2025. Booneville had 168 residents in the 2020 census, a scale that helps explain why the death of a local woman like Kathleen A. Wilson is felt not just by one household, but by the wider network of families and friends that gives the county its sense of continuity.