Mary Katherine Timberlake Gittinger

COLUMBIA - A celebration of the life of Mary Katherine Timberlake Gittinger, 93, will be held Saturday, January 17, 2009, at 3 o’clock in Smith Chapel (1422 Washington St.) of The First Presbyterian Church in Columbia. The Rev. L. Craig Wilkes will officiate. The family will receive friends after the service. Shives Funeral Home is assisting the family.

Kat, the widow of Professor C. McFerron Gittinger of USC, died January 13, 2009, in the Presbyterian Home in Lexington. Born in Linden, TX, Kat was reared in Camden in a family of 5 daughters. Her father was an oilman and former commissioner of Oil and Gas for the state of Arkansas. During the Depression her family went from wealthy to poor and Kat worked through her twenties to help her family survive. While working at Sears in Texarkana, she met her future husband Mc who was hired as the assistant manager. They moved to Columbia in 1943 when Mc was hired by USC to start the retailing department. When her youngest child entered elementary school, Kat began work as a secretary at S.C. National Bank (now Wells Fargo) and later as the minister’s (Rice and McClure) secretary at First Presbyterian Church. After her husband died in 1975, Kat enrolled at USC and graduated with a B.A. in English in 1981. She had a lifelong interest in words and grammar and her dictionary was one of her favorite books. At age 70, Kat moved to Woodbridge, VA, to be closer to two of her daughters and to be more involved in some of her grandchildren’s lives. She enjoyed her years as a reading volunteer with the elementary school, helping with the church library, playing bridge, providing after school care for her grandchildren, hosting family birthday parties and attending grandchildren’s sporting events. At age 89, she no longer wanted to live in her 3-story townhouse and mow her grass and wanted to down-size so she moved to the Presbyterian Home in Summerville, SC. Though she enjoyed Summerville, she longed to be where she had spent her adult life, so she transferred into the Presbyterian Home in Lexington in January 2007 and enjoyed watching her Gamecocks play their games on TVs. She also liked playing FreeCell on her computer and watching the Atlanta Braves.

Kat is survived by her 3 daughters and their husbands, Joanne and Ray Brown of Woodbridge, VA, Sandra and John Gates of Cocoa, FL, and Marsha Gittinger and Bob Danson of Hernando, FL. She is also survived by grandchildren, Shaun and wife Amanda Brown, Rian Brown, Caitlin Brown, Scott and wife Amanda Gates, and Stephen Gates, plus other family and friends.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Presbyterian Home Garden Club, 700 DaVega Drive, Lexington, SC 29073 or Harmony Care Hospice, 100 Ashland Park Lane, Ste. K, Columbia, SC 29210.

www.ShivesFuneralHome.com

(803) 754-6290