Katherine Jeanette (Harbaugh)Kefes Fitzmartin (1893-1970)

Katherine was born to McKinley Harbaugh and Elizabeth Finlayson in Rockford, IL. She had an older sister and brother, Loretta and Ralph. They were very close growing up and throughout their lives. They lived modestly in Rockford, where her father was first a schoolteacher and then a candymaker. She loved animals, especially cats, and was often ministering to the ailing cats/kittens of the neighborhood. She attended school in Rockford, IL; the family moved to Kenosha, WI in about 1915. Her granddaughter would later write about her grandmother Katherine (and the family) as follows:
"Kathie was a pretty thing. She was often told that she looked like Lillian Gish or Mary Pickford. She was about the same age as these glamorous movie stars of the silver screen, and had many a beau. My grandfather, Bill Kefes, was one of the young men of Kenosha who became captivated by her, the daughter of the candymaker of Sheridan Road. With WWI on the horizon, she succumbed to Bill's ardor and desire to marry, following him to Gettysburg, PA, where he was in an Army training unit before being shipped overseas. They married there, perhaps too quickly." The marriage to Bill Kefes lasted about 15 years, resulting in two children, Virginia and Donn. Katherine was a "gypsy" at heart and did not like being tied down. She took the two children and drove to California in a Model A, settling in Hollywood, CA. She attended the movies almost every other day, sometimes encouraging her daughter to skip school and go with her! Katherine (Kathie) lived in the Los Angeles environs for the rest of her life. She occasionally worked as a nurse aid, clerk in a department store, or as a cafeteria worker. She did not like growing older, as often pretty girls do not. She re-married one time, to an old Navy salt named Raymond Fitzmartin. She had two grandchildren, Steven and Valarie. She was a loving mother, and when her son Donn became afflicted with MS, she did all she could for him. During that caregiving time, she herself had a stroke, eventually passing away in 1970. She is buried close to her son Donn and her second husband, Ray.
∼Katherine was the daughter of McKinley Harbaugh and Elizabeth Finlayson. She was born in Rockford, Illinois where the family lived for many years, later moving to Kenosha in about 1915. She loved to bring home stray kittens and attend to them if they had been injured. Katherine had an older sister, Loretta, and an older brother Ralph. The siblings were very close their entire lives. Their father worked first as a school teacher, and later as a candymaker. Katherine was a very pretty girl and had many boyfriends, one of whom was William Kefes, Jr. She followed him to Gettysburg in 1918 where Bill was training in the U.S. Tank Corps during WWI. They married, and just days after Bill returned from his wartime duty overseas in Europe, their first child, Virginia Marie Kefes was born June 28, 1919. Almost ten years later, they had a second child, Donn Emerson Kefes. Katherine was a wanderlust, and decided to leave both her husband and Kenosha, taking her children and driving all the way across country to Hollywood, California in 1935. She and her children lived in motor courts and bungalows, and enjoyed seeing movie stars walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard. She loved to go to movies and she and Virginia would see at least 3 movies every week at the local theaters in Hollywood. Katherine worked occasionally as a sales lady or nurse assistant. In later years, she married Raymond Fitzmartin, a retired Navy man. Her son was afflicted with MS in the early 1960's, and she attended to him in the nursing home. She had a stroke during this difficult time. Her son Donn died in 1967, and she died in 1970. They are side by side at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills on a lovely hillside section called Morning Light.