Galbraith, Catherine Atwater

Writer and wife of economics professor and diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith, Catherine Atwater Galbraith was born in Plandome, New York, the daughter of Charles and Alice Caroline Merriam Atwater. She graduated from Smith College and studied German as a graduate student in Munich. She married Galbraith in 1937; they had four sons, one of whom died at age seven. Catherine Galbraith was of inestimable value in managing the family's affairs and in supporting her husband's undertakings, whether at Harvard University, as ambassador to India, or while at work on one of his many books. Fluent in Hindi, she was the author of India, Now and through Time (1980). She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2008.