Kathleen McCarthy ‘64, passed away on May 29, 2018. Kathleen was the first in her class to learn to read at Cayuga Heights Elementary School. Her father, Stephen McCarthy, was the head librarian at Cornell, and her mother was a librarian at Tompkins County Library. Kathleen went to Radcliffe College to study philosophy and literature and received a B.A. cum laude with concentrations in English and Philosophy. Her first career was in publishing in New York City. She worked at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, then became an editor at Africana Publishing company. Subsequently, she became a philosophy acquiring editor at Columbia University Press.
In her thirties, Kathy switched career paths and went back to college to receive her B.S.N degree summa cum laude/First in Class from Hunter College and the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing. She worked as a community health nurse and provided care for geriatric and HIV-positive patients in Harlem and the Lower East Side. Kathleen was an avid reader throughout her life. Her sister, Louise Mehta, says of her: “She was a woman who combined qualities seldom found in a single person. She was intellectually gifted and found much pleasure in the life of the mind. At the same time, as reflected in her career shift, she was deeply compassionate and driven to serve those in need. She fiercely opposed privilege in all its forms.” Kathleen also traveled widely, visiting Mali, the Sahara, and a remote village in Bangladesh to visit girls who she supported through Save the Children. She visited Africa, India, and traveled to Eastern Turkey, Jordan and Israel. In the US, she made cross-country trips and circled the perimeter of Manhattan (32 miles) twice.
Kathleen gave back to her city through volunteer work. Through New York Cares, she worked for New York Public Library, the Common Pantry, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and the Parks Department, completing 149 projects and 450 volunteer hours. In her retirement, she worked with the Reading Partners Program at Public School 188 on the Lower East Side. She also served as a homework assistant for children at Goddard Riverside Star Learning Center.
To memorialize Kathy and reflect her lifelong love of reading, her classmates, family, and friends reached out in June of 2018 to see if they could donate to the IHS library. The funds donated in memory of Kathleen McCarthy will be used to purchase several hundred books over the next few years, including titles recommended by her students, popular fiction, and titles that reflect her interests in philosophy and literature. The primary purpose of the donations in honor of Kathleen’s memory is to encourage current and future students to enjoy reading. If you open up a book from the IHS Library and it has a dedication inside stating “In memory of Kathleen McCarthy. . .” you can now appreciate Kathleen’s legacy.
Below is an excerpt from The Tattler’s June 3, 1963 issue from Kathleen’s time as a Tattler editor.
‘Tattler’ Editors Named for 1963-64
Two junior girls, Kathleen McCarthy and Martha Warren, have been named co-editors of the 1963-64 Tattler. Both of the have been members of the staff this year, and both of them have older sisters who were Tattler editors in their senior years. Louise McCarthy who graduated from Radcliffe this month, was a co-editor in 1958-59 and Mrs. Alice Warren Tomboulian, now living with her husband and two children in Rochester, Michigan, was co-editor in 1950-51.
Kathy is a member of the French and Latin clubs, the National Honor Society, and the library staff. She expects to go to a library staff. She expects to go to a liberal arts college after high school graduation but hasn’t decided on which one.
Martha is also a member of the French Club and the National Honor Society and until this year was Active in Girl Scouts. She expects to go the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell but has not yet decided on a major.
Applications for other positions on the paper are now being considered and will be decided on next week.