Obituary of Meeri H Kaaret

Meeri H. Kaaret

Ithaca - Meeri H. Kaaret, age 88 of Ithaca, NY, passed away on January 27, 2019. Meeri was born in Helsinki, Finland, to Lydia and Elias Lehtinen. Meeri's family was her greatest joy. In 1957, she met Raymond H. Kaaret in Helsinki while he was working on his dissertation on the Government of Finland. While engaged, Raymond promised that he would build her a house, though she thought he was kidding. After they married, the couple moved to the United States living in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Rockford, Ill., before settling in Ithaca in 1962. Along the way, they had four children: Thomas, David, Philip, and Liisa (Mobley). In 1965, the family moved into the promised house built by Raymond's hands where Meeri lived for fifty happy years.

Meeri attended Helsingin Yliopisto (University of Helsinki) and graduated from Rockford College in May 1962. She received a Masters of Library Science from Syracuse University in 1967. She worked at the Helsinki City Library, the Ithaca Public Library, as an Instructor in Swedish at Rockford College, and as a Librarian at Cornell University, starting at Olin Library, becoming Head of the Mann Library Catalog Division in 1976, and retiring in 1993. She is survived by her children, ten grandchildren (Christopher, Vincent, Kimberly, Daniel, Alexander, Alana, Jeffrey, Robert, Evan, and Maija-Liisa), and three great-grandchildren (Addison, Ryker, and Paisley).

A memorial service will be held on May 5, 2019, at St. Luke Lutheran Church, 109 Oak Avenue, Ithaca, NY; from 2:30-3:30, we will gather for greeting and remembrance, and the service will start at 3:30pm. The service will be followed by a private internment ceremony. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Gadabout of Ithaca, which provided Meeri joy in her latter years by enabling her to visit her family in her house.