When the Long Beach Stitch ‘n Beach Knitters lost a treasured member to pancreatic cancer, it was an easy decision to collect a memorial donation in honor of Kathy Scott. It was also easy to decide that the donation should be used to support children’s books and reading programs at the Long Beach Public Library.
Kathy was beloved by her knitting friends, as well as her running friends, as well as her husband and family members. Long Beach readers may have seen her at Literary Women each year, knitting with friends, delighting in the intersection of two of her passions. She was the one in the group creating the most complicated patterns … and having read the most books. She also knit with friends in parks, on road trips and retreats, in living rooms and waiting rooms and seats of boats and buses.
Kathy’s sisters report her love of books began before she learned to read. They listened to their parents reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and Sherlock Holmes, even on backpack trips in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Later, she grew into Agatha Christie and other mysteries, then The Godfather when she was way too young, sometimes sneaking a flashlight under the covers at night.
Love of books ran in her genes. Her grandfather was Head Librarian at UCSD and her aunt a children’s librarian.
Kathy often listened to audiobooks while she knit, discussed plots while she knit, made lists of books to read while she knit and chatted with friends. Kathy loved that her home was a short walk from her branch library, and she walked there often to collect books she’d put on hold.
In her last few weeks, Kathy extracted promises from loved ones: “Find joy and think of me.” Kathy was an expert at finding joy and her wide smile proved it. Reading and knitting were only two of her passions, but she held stories and skeins through the best of times and the ones that weren’t.
By putting books in the hands of young readers and stimulating their creativity and imagination, Kathy’s “knit sibs” hope those young readers will follow their own curiosities and find their own passions. As those knit sibs hold tight their memories of Kathy Scott.
