Katharine Leigh Plaut

August 30, 1924 – August 30, 2016

Katharine Leigh Plaut nee Arrmstrong passed away after a long battle with Alzheimers on August 23, 2016. Katharine aka Kay to her friends and Katie to her family, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana August 30, 1924 to Robert D. and Ruth May Armstrong. She was the second of four daughters, older sister, Martha and younger sisters Eleanor and Elizabeth. She graduated from Shortridge High School in 1941 and graduated from Butler University with a B.S. in 1946. She attended the University of Wisconsin and received an M.S. in Biochemistry in 1949. There she was assigned to share a lab with another graduate student, Gerhard Wolfgang Eugen Plaut, the love of her life. They married in 1950 and had three children, Tamara, Janet and Laura. Gerhard did research and taught at medical schools in Madison, New York City, Salt Lake City, New Jersey and finally Philadelphia where he was Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Temple University for 20 years. Katharine worked on and off in the lab with Gerhard for ten years and later became an editor of two medical dictionaries for W.B. Saunders. After Gerhard retired in 1990, they moved to Santa Rosa, California where they lived happily for 12 years until his death in 2002. Katharine moved to Zionsville, Indiana to be closer to her daughter and son in law, Janet and Kurt, and her only grandchild, Connor Leigh Giesselman. In 2006 she moved to West Seattle to be closer to her youngest daughter Laura. She told us that she loved every part of the country and was happy to end up in Seattle.

She is survived by her daughter Tamara Plaut, Austin, TX, her daughter Laura Ellen Plaut, Seattle, WA, her daughter and son in law Janet Plaut Giesselman and Kurt Michael Giesselman, Crested Butte, CO; her granddaughter, Connor Leigh Giesselman, Lexington, KY, her sister Eleanor Armstrong Hagemen, Seattle, WA; the Hageman family in Seattle; and the Plaut family in New York, Wilmington, and Baltimore.

Services are at The Kenney, Seattle, WA Friday September 16, 2016 at 3:00 PM. The family asks that donations be made in her memory to the Alzheimers Association. Condolences to www.forestlawn-seattle.com