Katharine Kane died last week at age 78. She lived in downtown Boston almost all her adult years. If there was a person who showed how one should live a full life, it was Katharine Elizabeth Fitzhugh Daniels Kane.

I know her full name and much about her, not because we were good friends, although we were friendly. I learned about her because I had the privilege of interviewing her three and a half weeks before she died. I also had interviewed her in years past and I took a course she conducted through Beacon Hill Seminars.

The impression I got about Kathy was that she was a person who seized every opportunity to be engaged with life, and she made the most of every advantage she was given. She was the only child of a prominent Indianapolis couple, but was grateful for her dozens of cousins. She made the most of a good education at Miss Porter’s and then at Smith by going to Washington after college and serving at the White House and then at the CIA. Continue reading →