Walter Kennedy Jr.

Funeral Mass for Walter J. Kennedy Jr., 79, of Shawnee, will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 8, at St. Joseph Catholic Church. Burial will follow in Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens, Kansas City, Kan.
Mr. Kennedy died Wednesday, April 2, 2008.
He was born May 18, 1928, in Kansas City, Kan., the son of Walter and Emily Kennedy.
After losing his mother, he moved to Turner, Kan., with his sister, Josephine Vincent. Walter joined the Navy and served in the submarine service from 1944 to 1949.
Mr. Kennedy was a graduate of Kansas University and its Law School. After a brief stint as a government attorney in 1956, he moved his family to El Dorado, Kan., and worked in a law firm there until 1961, when he returned to Kansas City. He then joined the law firm Hoskins, King, eventually as a partner. He concluded his legal career in 2007 with McAnany, Van Cleave.
Mr. Kennedy was married in 1951 to Norma Jeanne Buie, who died in 1984. He married Geraldine Lillich Rieke in 1986. She survives.
Other survivors include two daughters Kathleen Kennedy and Nancy Kennedy; three stepchildren Greg Rieke, Janet O’Neal and Robin Neville; nine grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
Visitation will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday, prior to the funeral Mass, at the church.
The family suggests donations to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, in loving memory of Walt’s granddaughter Julie O’Neal.
Online condolences can be made at amosfamily.com. Arr.: Amos Family Chapel of Shawnee.