Katherine Messerschmidt was one of nine children born of Gustave Henry Messerschmidt, owner of the San Francisco Bakery in Juneau (ca 1890-1946). She was born on the second floor of what is now Juneau’s Silver Bow Inn and Bakery. Her twin sister died when she was only 2 months old, of whooping cough and her mother died of tuberculosis when Katherine was 16.

Katherine worked in the bakery with her father from a very early age both at the counter and keeping the books. The experience she gained served her well in later years. In high school, she played guard on the women’s basketball team and was a Southeast champ in 1926-27, traveling by ferry to play other southeast community teams. She met her future husband, George Shaw, at a dance and was married in 1927. George was an electrician and Katherine sewed and gardened and gave birth to six children. However, George died of a heart attack in 1949, when she was expecting their sixth child, Margaret. Katherine opened a nursery to support her family. In 1958, the bookkeeping experience she had gained in the bakery enabled her to land a clerk’s job for the first State legislature. She soon rose into the Department of Revenue where she worked for 15 years.

An avid reader, Katherine nonetheless remains stalwart physically active, hiking into her 85th year. Even with a broken hip she walks daily regardless the weather. She volunteered for Girl Scouts, 4-H, the committee to build the museum, the Juneau-Douglas Museum and for more than twenty-five years at the “Inside Passage,” the Catholic Diocese newspaper. [Information from the Juneau Empire, March 16, 2001, article by Ann Chandonnet.]