Zeta Club - Details of 40 year Reunion

Catherine Kierney

Obituary: Dr Catherine M P Kierney (1948-2009) by her sister Margaret.

(Submitted 27/1/11)

Catherine was born, attended school and university in Glasgow, Scotland. After graduating in 1971, she did an internship in Falkirk, then decided that the opportunities for neonatologists were better in the USA, so she emigrated. Her first posts were in New York (Brooklyn Jewish and Mount Sinia). Later she worked in Evansville (Indiana) and Long Island. She further qualified as an anaesthetist, specializing in children, and for a time worked as a university lecturer.

After her marriage in 1982 she moved to Naperville, near Chicago, where she also worked in various hospitals until her early retirement. During all her active professional life Catherine frequently published in medical journals and was an accepted expert in neonatology and child-anaesthetics. She was always a caring doctor, and never got used to the sometimes tragic cases she came across. Catherine’s death on August 31^st 2009 was sudden and unexpected and a great shock for her family (husband Dr Gus Zimmerman and two children, Gus and Catherine) and her five siblings. She is sorely missed.

Appreciation by Margaret Mary Robertson (nee McKee)

I entered 2nd year Medicine at Glasgow University in October ’66, having completed a B Sc. I had been in Kate’s sister Margaret’s year at Notre Dame High School. My parents and Kate’s parents were both from well known teaching families in the City and were friendly with each other.

Kate, not knowing me, recognized my surname and instantly welcomed me into 2^nd year. She clucked around like a “Mother Hen” to make sure that I was involved in the year’s activities-curricular and extra curricular. It was enormously kind of her as it was a daunting experience to change faculties and enter a course that had already completed 1st year. Her spontaneity, genuine kindness, warmth and concern were typical of her.

Recently, her sister Mary Teresa said that: “Catherine’s main characteristic was unstinting generosity both spiritual and financial."

She also states that Catherine’s son Gustavus has just finished a degree in Politics in Washington. Young Catherine is about to go to University to study English and Drama.

Catherine lived in the same street as Jane Bremner(nee Third) and was with Jane the night before she died.