My son Paul Sommerfeldt told me today that he had a crush on Cathy when they were both students at St. Matthew School. They were in the same grade.  May the beautiful memories you have support you on your journey of healing.

Mary (Nickie) Sommerfeldt

To Van, Rye and Olive, a reminiscence....Catherine turned up in my office at Baltimore magazine in the early spring of 1996. She was a fresh-faced master's graduate interested in our search for a new copy chief.

I explained we’d had excess turnover on the copy desk; our two previous copy chiefs lasted mere months before deciding they'd rather be writers. I told Catherine we needed someone who would think that flourishing as the copy chief of a powerful city magazine was a terrific long-term career goal. She assured me this was precisely what she'd always wanted to be.

Months later, when I was conducting her evaluation and asked about how she planned to make the magazine better, she answered confidently: “To write, write and write.”

So much for keeping this bright young thing down on the farm.

Always a sucker for the combination of sharp intellect and ambition, I gave Catherine more writing assignments and soon advanced her to arts editor. She rapidly became one of the most solid staffers in our growing creative team, as we went on to win many of the industry's highest awards that year.

On a personal level, Catherine had also become attuned to the enormous stresses I faced with our inexperienced new publisher, who was calling in kill shots on any story that failed to reward his sacred cows. I cared deeply about journalistic ethics and integrity -- a passion earnestly shared by Catherine -- and each kill shot was spiking my blood pressure by the summer of 1996.

Catherine being Catherine, she noticed my attempts to monitor my blood pressure and found quiet ways to keep staffers away while I was testing. She further smoothed my path after my open-heart surgery that October. I knew this was someone I could trust completely. She was just so rock-solid kind.

Years later we worked on the same floor in Hopkins' Fells Point offices, where Catherine's meteoric rise to the top of her division's operations filled me with endless pride. I also got to repeatedly link up with Catherine and Van and the amazing girls all around the surrounding Fells Point neighborhood.

I remain stunned by Catherine's sudden departure last week. Her older girl, Rye, has just started high school. She's been living the perfect life with Van and the girls and deserved so many more years.

Our messy world needs more Catherine Pierres, and I have little doubt that her unwaveringly kind support for so many of those she encountered will spawn untold waves of selfless acts. God bless you Catherine, and may your gospel of kindness echo until the end of time among all who loved you. I'm honored to be among them.