Karen Sue (Blake) Oldson

Karen Sue Blake Oldson, 77, passed away February 6, 2025, at Progressive Care Center in Canon City, Colorado. K-Sue, as everyone knew her after her grandmother gave her the nickname as a child, was born April 10, 1947, and was raised in Salina, Kansas. After attending Kansas State University, she moved to Nassau Bay, Texas, where she was a contract worker at NASA working on the Apollo 13 mission. She was sent to Florida to do data entry before each of the final four Apollo launches. 

With the end of the Apollo Missions in 1972, she moved to Denver, Colorado. She worked in data management for several companies, including as a program tester at a phone company where she met her future husband, Don Oldson. They married on July 1, 1989. Upon retirement in 1997, they moved to Westcliffe, Colorado, where they built a log home in the mountains above Westcliffe with a beautiful view of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. They spent winters in Arizona at a campground. After Don passed away in May of 2005, K-Sue found her passion for making quilts to give to friends, relatives, and organizations she supported, including a local Veterans Home. She also made space-themed quilts that she sent to the NASA astronauts. She moved to Florence, Colorado, in 2019 with her dog, Apollo, where she lived until her death. 

She is survived by her sisters Judy Blake (Jim Laughlin) and Marilyn Blake, Culleoka, Tennessee and Jane Beasley, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; nieces Katherine Beasley and Sarah Beasley (Jason Morris); great niece Keelan Farrell; great nephews Elliott and Jasper Morris, all of Pittsburgh and Ben Gager, Nashville, Tennessee. 

In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her parents, Herbert and Ella Blake, and brother-in-law, Jim Beasley. 

No services are planned at present.

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