She was many things, big and consequential, to many people, to many causes and institutions, to her nation and especially to its Founding Father, George, to her small, beloved hometown, to the company she turned into a global force, but what Karen Wright — dear friend of this journal and this writer, who passed away this day after the last of her several hand-to-hand battles with a much-determined cancer — hoped above all to be remembered as is this: mother.

Consider it done. That is how this remembrance of a remarkable woman and epitome of kindness will commence. Mother of Alex, Hunter, Andrew, and Sam, Karen Buchwald Wright, age 71, having run the race and having shared, in her way, the sufferings of the Lord in whom she believed, having carried out the responsibility of one to whom the Good Book designates as much has been given (and in her case, made), has died, and is mourned.

Besides her sons and several grandchildren, Karen is survived by her husband Tom, her mother Maureen, and many friends. Many. She was predeceased in 2021 by her son Hunter, who also fought a tenacious battle with cancer, by her father James Buchwald, and in youth by her brother Philip.

Born — or was it predestined?! — on the Fourth of July in Mount Vernon, Ohio, young Karen led a decidedly normal life, patriotic and Midwestern and God-fearing, while her father Jim was designing and creating a new type of gas compressor, and launching the company that would manufacture it, Ariel Corporation — destined to be the world’s premier manufacturer, its premium product providing a critical component to the drilling process that has tapped and unleashed America’s energy abundance. Off to St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., (she graduated in 1975) to pursue ethology, Karen’s love of animals (a passion never abated) as a career would give way to other forces, and an eventual homecoming to Mount Vernon — a name coincidental with another passion, that of the home and legacy of George Washington — where she joined the family firm, at first part time, while starting her own (of the immediate kind). Tempus fugit: Soon enough, the baton passing from her father, Karen would take over Ariel’s reins in 2001, and grow the private company, exponentially, alongside stage-managing a home with a clutch of boys — which she contended was her principal source of CEO preparedness.

Leadership and success — and under her, Ariel was quite successful — brought demands and responsibilities to a mother/boss with innate abilities and a capacity to be far more than a manufacturing titan. An avid reader and lover of history, and art (she had a particular fondness for the great American painter, Maxfield Parrish), she discerned calls, to her town and her nation, and to the unalienable rights that she cherished. She responded in ways most star-spangled.

At home: Ariel proved an anchor to Mount Vernon, a town harmed when major employers (Cooper, Pittsburgh Plate and Glass) vamoosed. It was critical to Karen to ensure that Ariel’s fate would be different. Its growth and wild achievements were due in part to her innate sense of deep commitment and responsibility to employees, and to manifesting an intentional corporate culture. People were not afterthoughts. Karen was driven to make certain that Ariel would be a place where people wanted to work, were happy doing so (and where families were involved), where input was encouraged and rewarded, where employment would be well-paying and foresight would weather business down cycles, and where there thrived participation and cooperation that led to we-band-of-brothers-and-sisters success. The result was stability and profits and growth, on a remarkable order. This meant that Mount Vernon had at least one foundational business amidst the debris of abandoned plants and a threadbare downtown.

These were problems to be fixed. Karen Wright’s generosity — in cash and in leadership — and her creation of the Ariel Foundation (its endowment essentially tithed a slice of the company’s profits for the purpose of underwriting hometown projects and rehabilitation) turned around Mount Vernon’s fortunes. Eyesores became beautiful parks, empty buildings were presto! college classrooms, the local hospital expanded, the local Y was retrofitted, and numerous other turnarounds rolled out over the years (even for the mundane: Foundation support was regularly given for municipal snow removal). Through the foundation and Karen’s own personal charity, the little town of 17,000 along the Kokosing River has been blessed with generosity (since its launch Ariel has provided over $98 million to 700-plus local projects), and it shows. Philanthropic dollars may go down ratholes in some places, but not here: Yeah, you’d want to visit vibrant and lovely Mount Vernon — and maybe even live there. It all didn’t happen by magic, unless Karen Wright was magic.

Not so local: There is that other Mount Vernon, the one that many do visit, that claimed a part of Karen Wright’s heart — the home to George Washington. From youth — fascinated by a then-popular children’s book, Augusta Stevenson’s George Washington, Boy Leader — she embraced the Founding Father, seeing his as the American ideal, and was captivated by his mix of strength, self-awareness, and the numerous talents and capabilities he displayed that transcended martial affairs and farming arts. When financial success came her way, she gave generously and frequently to uphold the legacy of POTUS 1 though the preservation of his historic home and its campus (one of the more beautiful features of Washington’s Presidential Library is the Karen Buchwald Wright Reading Room), overseen by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association (an institution Karen saw as additional proof that women can and indeed do run shows and run them darned well).

And then there were those larger things and causes — liberty and conservatism and fighting the madness of “climate change” ideologues — that mattered to her deeply. Karen met them twofold: by active participation as a board member in the affairs of a long list of organizations, including National Review Institute, Media Research Center, State Policy Network, Conservative Enterprise Institute, and Ashbrook Institute, and by her associated charitable donations. By conservative philanthropic standards, she put the large in largesse. Karen’s regular giving was enormous and widespread. Why? Because there were fights to be fought on numerous fronts, sundry foes of freedom to be exposed, countless righteous causes to be advocated, and God-shed grace to be shepherded and shared. She knew victory, whenever it was to happen, would not spring from mere luck, hollow words, good looks, and maybe someday procrastination. For the things about which she cared, that someday was today. She gave and bankrolled and underwrote — and hosted and entertained and emailed and texted — and could have spent each and every day, all day, receiving supplicants and wanna-be beneficiaries hoping to join her list of supported institutions. Yes, there were scores of them.

Then: A few years back a brick wall was hit. Son Hunter (who, along with his brothers, was part of Ariel’s third-generation leadership, the baton being passed from Karen) was stricken with cancer. His was a grueling battle, with cancer winning. In perverse irony, Karen, herself having fought breast cancer some years earlier, endured its unwelcome return at the very moment this mother was trying desperately to help her afflicted son. In her grief, another long battle against the dreaded disease commenced — what measures and therapies were not tried? Along the way, there were moments of genuine hope, where this test result or that new treatment signaled improvement, raising hope that victory was surely there, just over the horizon.

A year and a half ago, eventually forgoing chemotherapy and its brutality and its apparent futility, the end had come. But something stirred. Karen wanted to live, and changed her mind, and chose to bear again the painful treatments, life being precious even in distress, and . . . they worked. Seeing her last October in Mount Vernon, it was hard to believe I was visiting someone who had spent the last few years relentlessly pumped with caustic agents. She looked . . . great. And she was.

Alas Death — where was thy sting?

It stung. The struggle for most goes one step forward, but then two steps back, then three back, and then the motion stops.

The motion stopped today for Karen. Now comes is that which comes for all — sorrow, condolences, grasped-at comforts (at least there is no more suffering), services, eulogies, tears, more tears, and the wondering of . . . what’s next? Is she . . . gone?

For Karen Wright, a believer, the tears can flow, and should. After all, Jesus wept for Lazarus. Many will and should weep, even bitterly, for their mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, friend, colleague, benefactor — even though, we hope and pray, she is in a better place, which we shall call it by its name, Heaven — after these purgatorial recent years. Would that she now enjoy God’s embrace, reunited with her son and brother and father.

We believers are assured: Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, what God has ready for those who love Him. Question: Who loved Him, directly, or through his neighbor, more than did Karen, this protégé of the Good Samaritan?

So tears must flow, but then give way to hope, despair to confidence. And there should be a flood of memories and impressions and inspirations: that Karen’s was, and is, a lovely soul, that she was beautiful, gracious, and thoughtful, she was a confiding friend, she did not believe there were little people, she freely embraced her charitable duties, she shared time and treasure freely, she loved beauty, she loved her hometown (a welcome thing in a transient society), she loved America in all its Old Glory-wavery, she tipped big (“I used to be a waitress”), she was unafraid to talk about God and prayer (she loved an Aramaic version of the Our Father), she was funny (Her: “Why are you picking up the check?” Me: “I always wanted to buy dinner for a millionaire.” Her: “It’s a billionaire.”), she was tough (she bore with dignity that exquisite pain of a mother who has lost a child), she was a proud woman (emphasis on woman, who disdained the ideology of feminism), she was smart, (book smart and wisdom smart and business smart and people smart), and she was a fierce friend.

Discussing that, one fierce and mutual friend, Brent Bozell, ruminated:

Spend an entire evening with Karen Wright and you still won’t fathom Karen Wright. Sure, you’ll know she’s a successful businesswoman, but you won’t learn she is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the past half century because she’ll never tell you. You’ll assume she knows a thing or two about public policy, and she’ll confirm that, but you won’t discern that she’s also one of the greatest philanthropists in the conservative movement because she’ll never act like one. You’ll discover Karen’s been ill, but you’ll have no idea how much she’s suffered because the toughest and bravest never show it. No, to fully appreciate Karen Wright requires many conversations over many evenings, she with a glass of champagne and you with a bourbon, talking and listening, and so often bursting in laughter because that’s how long it takes to learn the full measure of this woman in front of you, and to appreciate that when God introduced you to this lovely, fun-loving, modest, generous, patriotic, and brilliant lady — oh, what a lady! — He was gifting something that can never be repaid.

Born on July 4, she rightly saw America as a gift to us all. Fortunately, some people, rare people, are themselves a gift to America, and all that it means and has meant and will mean (should sanity prevail, and liberty-despising ideology be in retreat) — and we are right to think that about Karen Wright. That rare person, she got a lot, but she gave far more, and the bounty in her care — recycled liberally, optimized expansively — will be long-lasting. A decade hence, a generation hence, we will enjoy and benefit from her consequence. And lest we forget, maybe over the years we commit ourselves to give this consequential benevolence deserved occasional thoughts, and even to reminisce and appreciate her legacy, and to appreciate her.

Happier thoughts will have their day. For this moment of wet eyes and fingered rosaries and sympathy cards and grief, we shall mourn Karen’s passing, we shall share sincere condolences with Tom, Maureen, and Karen’s sons and grandchildren, and stand as public witnesses to this unique and special and deeply good lady and patriot. This fierce friend. This mother.

You have done so very much good, Karen Wright. Now, as goes the old hymn, The strife is o’er, the battle won. Requiescat in Pace.