Happy 114th Birthday, Grandma Catherine Keeler!

On this day in 1912, Katherine Maria Gutting was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the second youngest of six kids born to John and Jennie Gutting.

Here she is with her big sister Ethel. By 1930, the family moved from Missouri to California.

Before she was ever a grandma, she was a wife. First, after high school, she married her high school sweetheart, Brad Keeler.

And here they are with the whole Gutting clan. Brad is back row, second from right, and Catherine is front row, second from left. I believe that’s Little Brad in her arms.

While her birth certificate spelled her name with a K, over the course of her life—and sometimes, even in childhood—her name was spelled with a C. I am named after her.

Katherine or Catherine or Kay, whatever you called her, she was just Grandma to me.

Here she is with my mom, far left, Uncle Pat, and Cousin Lynn, Aunt Ethel’s daughter.

After Brad’s death, she remarried. That’s Mom front and center in the red dress with cousin Lynn and next to her is Grandma Catherine and Grandpa Maurice with his arms around her waist. We believe this was Grandma Jennie’s funeral.

When Grandma Catherine and Grandpa Maurice bought a cafe called Bud and Kay’s, she started going by Kay. I always called her Grandma Catherine but in the photo album where she kept pictures of all of us kids she calls herself Grandma Kay, which is what many of the grandkids called her.

Yes, that’s me!

During her lifetime, she had nine grandchildren including two as part of a blended family. She loved all of us.

When she was young, she was a little spicy, a little sweet.

Ooh la la!

She died in 1979, when I was seven going on eight. So many things I wish I could’ve asked her. But that’s the way of it. Always more questions than answers.

From the family album.