Kathleen June Castillo
1931 to 2025

Kathleen’s favorite saying:
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
– Helen Keller

Kathleen was a lover of cats, a defender of wildlife, and a swimmer!

Kathleen June Castillo, age 93, of Berkeley, California, died at home on Saturday, May 3, 2025.
She was surrounded by family and friends and passed away peacefully of old age. Her birthday
was June 4. She almost made it to 94.

She is survived by her daughter, Julie Kitzenberger; her brother, Donald Schmidt; her cousin
Trish Campbell; and nieces Julie Nassif and Debbie Pitsch.

She preferred to be called Kathy.

Kathy was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1931, to Delmar and Edna Schmidt. Delmar
continued his father’s furniture business in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Edna was the first
woman in her family to get a college degree.

Kathy got a degree in Sociology from North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She shared a
large dorm room with several roommates. The boyfriends lived in a boarding house across the
street. They used flashlights to send Morse code messages to each other every evening. She
remained in touch with all of the roommates throughout her life. She outlived them all.

She met her husband, Glen Kitzenberger, at North Central College, where he was attending
Seminary to become a Methodist minister. After they married, they moved to Burrton, Kansas,
where they served in their first church. Kathy said they had wheat fields for neighbors. Kathy
hung a framed picture of Monterey’s Lone Cypress on the living room wall and told herself she
would one day live in California. That picture still hangs in her living room today.

In the early ‘60s, Kathy and Glen moved to Berkeley, California, where Glen worked with the
Quaker’s American Friends Service Committee. The AFSC organized the first peace march
against the Viet Nam war in the United States, and Kathy and her friend Dorothy Flanagan
coordinated the logistics.

After she and Glen divorced, Kathy married Javier Castillo, a native of Coahuila, Mexico, who
was a gifted pianist and composer. Some of his new-music compositions were performed by the
San Francisco Symphony. Kathy worked for the Welfare Department for several years. Later
she got a Master’s in Counseling from Cal. State Hayward and worked as a counselor in Oakland
with Native American students and then in a junior high school in Vallejo.

After she and Javier divorced, Kathy remained in touch with his younger brother, Ricardo, who
had visited them in Berkeley and who later worked as a journalist in Mexico City.

Kathy moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho, and then to Jackson, Wyoming. After two very cold winters
there, she returned to California, settling in Pacific Grove where she trained in alternative
medicine and became a California-certified acupressurist. She moved back to Berkeley and set
up a practice there.

Kathy loved cats. She had Misty and Calico in Kansas; Eucalyptus, Luminosita and Tigre in
Berkeley; Neally and Moe in Pacific Grove; then Brighty when she moved back to Berkeley; and
lastly her part-Siamese cat, Coco, who lived to be 17 years old and passed away 6 days before
Kathy did. Friends said Kathy couldn’t continue without her Coco. When Kathy spent 3 months
in a rehab center for wound care, thoughts of Coco kept her going. Every day she asked when
she would see her kitty again. Every staff member in the SNF knew who Coco was.

Kathy cared deeply about wildlife, especially wolves. She had many pictures and paintings of
wolves in her home. We used to say she had a small national park in her back yard, with a
mother deer and 2 fawns visiting every spring, many raccoons, the occasional possum, a family
of skunks, plus the squirrels and birds she fed every morning. She contributed whatever she
could spare to conservation organizations.

Kathy was an avid swimmer. She swam every day except when the pool was closed, at 7:30
every morning. In the winter, she wore a full-length down coat while she scraped frost off of
her car windshield, and then she went swimming. She swam until two years before her passing,
when the pain in her right knee from severe arthritis prevented her from walking to the pool.

Kathy was passionate about health. She did stretching exercises and weight-lifting every
morning until October of last year. She read Adele Davis’ books, “Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit”
and “Let’s Have Healthy Children.” She put blackstrap molasses in Julie’s milk and wheat germ
in the chocolate chip cookies she made. Her pet peeve was people saying food was healthy. “It’s

healthful,” she reminded people, “that is, good for people’s health. Food isn’t healthy; people
are healthy.”

Kathy had many friends and remained in touch with them throughout her life. She loved
national parks and public lands and traveled there often with her friends. The Grand Canyon,
Teton National Park and Yosemite were her favorites. She also traveled up the Inside Passage to
Alaska, throughout the Southwest, to Nova Scotia, Copper Canyon in Mexico, Costa Rica, and
Guatemala.

Every morning, Kathy sprinkled sunflowers seeds onto china dishes for the back yard squirrels.
Every Friday she went to Costco to get a polish sausage and then walked around Point Isabel.
Every 4 th of July she had a BBQ in her back yard with long-time friends.

Kathy loved chocolate and raspberries and See’s raspberry cremes. Her favorite ice cream was
Baskin & Robbins German Chocolate Cake. She had a Pepsi and popcorn when she watched
movies on TV, but with no butter on the popcorn. She didn’t like dairy products except for ice
cream, and she didn’t like coffee.

When Kathy worked for the Oakland public schools, her principal, Christine, got her started
collecting Beanie Babies. At last count, Kathy had collected over 175 beanies, some of which
were duplicates, and some were the Princess Diana beanie. Two beanies were brought to the
memorial service in memory of Kathy: a cat named Purr and a wolf named Howl.

Kathy loved calendars of cats and spectacular landscapes. She went to the Pegasus Books
calendar sale every January. She had 23 calendars hung throughout the house and up and down
the back stairs. She changed them every month.

Kathy loved classical music and opera. Her favorite opera singers were Donald Graham and
Placido Domingo. Her favorite operetta was “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” Kathy and Julie
listened to it every Christmas while they baked cooky press cookies.

Her favorite TV shows were Perry Mason and Colombo.
Her favorite movie stars were Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman.

Spiritually, Kathy felt the closest connection with the Quakers and Native Americans. Every
Mother’s Day she visited the Stanford Pow-wow, and Julie often went with her.

I believe Kathy would say this to all of us:

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there.
I did not die.

Kathy’s favorite wildlife charity was Defenders of Wildlife. Donations to Defenders of Wildlife
would be greatly appreciated. https://defenders.org/

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