Katherine Ann (Shanor) Baum

Kate Baum, a Portland teacher, activist and beloved mother of four, grandmother of
seven, and great-grandmother of three, died on June 17 in Vancouver, Wash. She was
82.
Kate Ann Shanor was born on Aug. 7, 1931 in Saginaw, Mich., to Katherine and William
Shanor, both natives of Pennsylvania. She graduated from Comstock Park (Mich.) High
School in 1949 and met her future husband, Jerry Baum, at Kalamazoo College, where
she received a degree in English in 1953; they were wed that year. After living in
Michigan and Iowa, Kate and Jerry moved their young family to Portland in 1962.
Kate taught kindergarten and second grade classes in Lake Oswego and Portland for
27 years. She retired in 1993, as did Jerry, from a professorship at Lewis and Clark
College, where he taught in the English department. They traveled to Europe, Mexico,
Hong Kong, and China.
Kate was a longtime activist with for Portland Jobs With Justice, a worker rights group,
and the Oregon Education Association teachers union. She loved live theater, classical
music, foreign films and reading. In 1973, and again in 1983, she and Jerry took 30
college students from Lewis and Clark to England and Scotland to study literature and
political theater. At Glenwood Place in Vancouver, where she moved in 2007, Kate
acted in productions staged by residents.
Kate is survived by daughters Sidney Baum, of Eugene; Connie Baum, of Tacoma; and
Paty Baum, of Todos Santos, Mexico; son Christopher Baum of Portland; brother
Donald Shanor, of Edgartown, Mass.; and sister Alice Marsh, of Grandville, Mich. Jerry,
her husband of 53 years, died in 2006. Donations in her memory can be made to The
Catholic Worker or Portland Jobs With Justice.