Katherine Desimone; Eager Traveler Who `Played To People's Strengths'

The custom-made license plate - a gift from the boy who did yardwork for Katherine Desimone - reads, "Always Out and About."

Call it an understatement.

Not only did the 5-foot-3-inch octogenarian cruise Seattle in her blue Cadillac, picking up friends for lunch and bridge, Mrs. Desimone traveled the world to the very end.

The last few years of her life saw her boating with her family down the Rhone River in France, cruising to Alaska, marshaling a family vacation to Budapest and leading a trek to the ancestral home in southern Italy.

"She was so adventuresome," said her daughter-in-law Patricia Desimone. "She loved to learn."

Katherine Desimone, a woman whose life was entwined with the symbolic heart of Seattle, died Tuesday after a brief illness. She was 85.

A native of Cheyenne, Wyo., Katherine moved to Seattle when she was 13 and graduated from Franklin High School and the University of Washington.

Katherine met her husband, Richard, amid the rambling vegetable and fish stalls of the Pike Place Market. She worked there as a secretary to his father, farmer and businessman Guiseppe "Joe" Desimone. The elder Desimone founded Pike Place Market in 1925 with Arthur Goodwin. Katherine and Richard married in 1937.

Richard was manager and president of Pike Place Market from 1946 to 1974, when the market was sold to the city of Seattle for $2,019,612.

Mrs. Desimone's family remembers her as a devoted, caring

mother and grandmother who showed extraordinary dignity and grace.

"She would learn your interests and then do everything in her power to bring those to you," said her grandson Rick Desimone of West Seattle. "She really played to people's strengths."

Until she died, Mrs. Desimone lived in the family home in the Gregory Heights neighborhood of Seattle near Burien, where she kept a garden filled with the 85 varieties of rhododendrons she collected in her travels around the state.

An active member of the Associated Women of the University of Washington and the U.W. Alumni Association, Mrs. Desimone also served on the Seattle Opera Guild and on boards for the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Seattle Symphony.

Mrs. Desimone is survived by sons Joseph and Richard Jr.; grandsons Richard III and John; granddaughter Ann; great-granddaughter Sophia; cousins Richard and Elizabeth; and many friends. She was preceded in death by her husband and by her son James.

Eucharist services for Mrs. Desimone will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church, 1005 S.W. 152nd St. Donations may be made to St. Elizabeth's or to a charity of choice.

Viewing will be from noon to 8 p.m. today at the Bonney Watson funeral home, 900 S.W. 146th St., Burien. Interment will be at Seattle's Calvary Cemetery.