Born into an Irish Catholic family in Philadelphia, Catherine’s life was marked not by distance, but by closeness. From baptism to burial, her years unfolded within the same parish and along the same street, where family gathered rather than scattered.

Women’s surnames often fade from records, even as their lives shape everything that follows. In this piece, I remember my grandmothers, Kathleen Kearney and Rosemary Powell, and the ways their names, stories, and legacies remain deeply alive within our family.