Born 05 February 1961 in Seoul, Korea, died 27 January
2016 in West Hartford CT, Kim was the adopted daughter of David Graham
McConnell and Virginia Langhorne Alexander (Buddy-photo, left) McConnell.
After more than a year of their working through the system, Kim was
officially adopted by proxy in Seoul, and was brought at six months of
age in August of 1961 to Buddy at San Francisco International Airport by
a Korean physician. Because the tiny infant was severely malnourished
and afflicted with chicken pox, a highly contagious viral disease, the
physician feared she would be denied admission by U.S. Customs. He
managed to spirit her through Customs in a shoebox, then advised Buddy
of Kim's precarious condition and the urgency of immediate medical
attention. Buddy was left with a very sick infant and three older boys
to manage, just as she was trying to finish moving into a new house in
Los Altos, South of San Francisco. Not anticipating the infant's
immediate arrival, Dave had returned to Columbus to close down his lab
at Ohio State before taking a new job in Palo Alto. Kim's survival
during her critical transition to America was due to Buddy's
'round-the-clock, weeks-long devotion to Kim's care, and the vital
participation of a Los Altos pediatrician. After the family's return to
Ohio, Kim received her pre-school and primary school education in Upper
Arlington. Later, she received her secondary school education at
Connecticut's Kent School, where she competed in varsity soccer and
cross-country, and was a year-book photographer graduating in 1979. In
1987 she earned a BA in Sociology from the University of Hartford, and
from May 1988 until September 1990 worked in accounting at Hartford's
CIGNA insurance corporation. From her early thirties until her death,
Kim struggled valiantly with systemic lupus erythematosus. She was
predeceased by her adoptive mother (Buddy); three adoptive older
brothers - Ross, Paul and Alex McConnell; and Alex's wife Sandra Grahn.
She is survived by Alex's two sons Galen and Duncan McConnell, her
stepmother Pat Barnes-McConnell, stepsisters Teresa Barnes Kilgore and
Debora Barnes-Josiah, her adoptive father David, her uncle (Buddy's
younger brother) James C. K. Alexander, four step-nieces or nephews and
many good friends including Elise Lafosse and Laurel Gilmour Dempsey
from Kent School, Helen and Tony Toland of West Hartford and Avon CT.
Kim will be greatly missed by friends and family.
