Katherine “Kat” Stevens Bradley died on September 11, 2026 in Savannah, Georgia, after unexpected complications from a surgery and a stroke. Born in High Point, North Carolina, to Lottie and Lester Stevens, she was 73. She is survived by her only child Lucas Bradley, her three grandchildren, Annie, Charlie, and Ellie, her sweetheart Leonard Fletcher, her brother Kenneth Stevens, and a large extended family and friend group. Throughout her life, she lived in High Point; Columbia, SC; and her latest beloved community of Wilmington Island, Savannah.

Appropriately for a drama teacher and costumer extraordinaire, Kat wore many hats. She was a devoted mother to her only son, Lucas Bradley. She and Luke shared a love of old-time and Irish music. Kat infused that love in Luke by taking him to old time and Irish jams in Columbia and the North Carolina mountains. She and Luke also attended music festivals throughout the south, sleeping in the back of Kat’s car or in a tent and listening to pickers play the night away. She constantly made sure Luke knew she loved him. Luke will always appreciate everything that his Mom did for him and who she taught him to be. He will always love her.

Kat was an equally doting grandmother to her three grandchildren, Annie, Charlie, and Ellie. She loved nothing more than playing with the kids and hosting them at her house. A lifetime artist, she constantly encouraged the grandchildren to create art, and Annie seldom returned from a sleepover at Nana’s house without a new canvas that she had diligently painted with help from Nana. She also frequently joined the grandkids for dinner at Luke’s house, along with her daughter-in-law Katie. Every time she arrived, the grandchildren inevitably screamed “Nana!” and came charging towards the front door, where she was usually unloading a new group of musical instruments, books, and clothes with which to dote on them. They invariably then forced her to play “the game,” in which they paraded in front of her her pretending to be animals and forcing her to guess their animal identity. This would go on for *far too long*. As Nana observed about the game, “at least we’re sitting down.”

Kat was a loyal and loving partner to her sweetheart, Leonard “Fletch” Fletcher. After meeting late in life, they maintained residences in Savannah and Edisto Beach and adored spending time together in both locations. Kat thought Fletch hung the moon, and she kept his handwritten notes of affection scattered throughout her house, taped to cabinets and shelves. Fletch loved joining Kat on the screen porch for happy hours, dinners out together, and spending time with both partners’ families. They were also united in their fierce devotion to their small dogs, Quimby, BB, Nicholas, and Gunner. He loved her fiercely and misses her deeply.

Her social circle extended far beyond her family. Fletch playfully teased Kat about her similarity to the outgoing characters in Progressive commercials because of her inexhaustibly social nature and ability to make friends with anyone she met. Within a year of moving to Savannah, Kat had developed a friend group that would be the envy of most twenty-year residents. She also maintained lifelong friends from her decades in Columbia, SC. One of her oldest friends described her as a “safe harbor” and a “home.” Her other friends would agree. As Kat’s life ended, Fletch and Luke heard from dozens of people who loved her with rare devotion.

Although Kat had retired well prior to her death, she was a stellar schoolteacher for decades. Her longest and last teaching home was at Brennan Elementary School in Columbia, where her son Luke attended and where she taught drama for almost twenty years. She was a notoriously fun teacher (although she would want it mentioned that she maintained excellent classroom control) and demonstrated a singular ability to direct a gaggle of hundreds of elementary school children. Every year, she staged multiple productions, including a still-famous annual third-grade play in which approximately 130 students each had a speaking role. It is no surprise that she was honored as Teacher of the Year during her time at Brennan and was universally understood to be an institution within the school.

Kat’s deepest identity, beyond the people she loved, was as an artist, writer, and believer in the world around her. She created constantly. She generated visual and mixed-media art at an incredible clip, including personalized books for her grandchildren and homemade cards for their birthdays and special occasions. Growing up, Luke ate dinner on a rotating array of handmade artistic placemats reflecting whatever his interest was at the time—one month sharks, another dinosaurs. Once, trying to fool the Tooth Fairy, Luke created a fake tooth out of white modeling clay and put it under his pillow. The next morning, he awoke to a meticulously crafted green clay one-dollar bill. Kat, it turns out, could use her art for good or for mischief.

She was also a lifetime musician. A piano performance major who also played guitar, accordion, dulcimer, ukulele, and fiddle, she constantly wrote original songs and was a member of multiple bands throughout her life—especially devoting time to the Fabulous Porkskins in the 1990s-2000s, Slap Wore Out in the 2010s, and the Island Pickers in the 2020s. She created a music video for one of her latest original songs, Close Up Your Laptop and Open Up Your Heart. In Savannah, she sang in the choir at her church, Asbury Memorial, and played in a musical group that visited memory-care centers and played for the residents.

In her last decade, however, Kat’s preferred medium was the written word. After a first stroke in 2013, from which she recovered, she created Healing In Spirit, a collection of acrostic poems and essays about her recovery from a stroke and her lifelong efforts to understand and buttress her own heart and soul. A brutally raw work, it exemplified her artistic honesty, her deep care, and her uncommon openness. She also prolifically authored children’s books, including a book to help calm children facing pediatric cancer. Those books joined a repertoire of scripts and plays she had written throughout her drama career, including a South Carolina history television show optioned by ETV that still teaches children to this day.

These artistic endeavors flowed from a common wellspring. While not traditionally religious, Kat had deep faith and belief. She believed in the beauty of nature and the universe and in the divine feminine, going so far as to craft an “Our Mother’s Prayer” as a counterpoint to the traditional Our Father. She believed in the good of people, the power of art, and in the intrinsic worth of herself and others. That belief bubbled up from her like a spring. It is who she was. It is what we will miss.

Kat was more than her resume. She was our mom, our Nana, our sweetheart, our friend, our confidant, our eccentric aunt, our drinking buddy, our dog-parent, our bandmate, our teacher, our director, our scene partner, and our sounding board. In death, she will remain our template for living a deeply open, vibrant, caring, interconnected, spiritual life. We love her and will miss her.

Services will be announced at a later date.