Fond Memories of Kit
By Emmy Shakeshaft
Ames, Iowa
May, 2004
 
My five-years-older sister was a part of my world from the very beginning. Our mother told a story about my going as a toddler with her to tea someplace, and having a good time, and when we got home to Kit, I opened a grubby, sticky fist, and offered her the chocolate cake? candy? I'd saved for her. She was my big sister, and I loved her very much.
When she left home, to go to Sarah Lawrence, she was extraordinarily kind to me, and invited me to visit her there numerous times, and even to go with her and her friends to various places/events in New York City. My idea of what a college should be was formed under her tutelage: small classes, following the truth where it led, and all that. But I wanted boys! So I applied to Reed College, which had another advantage: it was far, far from home! Reed has been an important part of my identity ever since.
Kit and Don were wonderfully kind to me all the times I visited them, when I was on my way back and forth to Reed in Portland, Oregon, when they lived in Chicago, and Denver, and Baltimore, and eventually Chevy Chase. Every time, they'd drag in some guy for me — I remember a fat dentist in Chicago — and I begged, I pled with them to stop it. I’d say, "We'd have a much better time, just the three of us!!" They said one more time, and that was Jerry Shakeshaft. Jerry was the love of my life, father of my children, beloved husband for 42 years, in whose shadow I live, even now. Without Kit I never would have met him and my life would have been altogether different.s
 

Home