Oettinger, Katherine Brownell, 1903-1997

The elder daughter of Charles Leonard and Eunice (Bennet) Brownell, Katherine Brownell Oettinger was born in Nyack, New York, on September 24, 1903. Following the death of her father, the family moved to New York City, where Oettinger attended grammar school and Hunter College High School. She graduated from Smith College with honors in sociology and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1925; in 1926 she received a master's degree from the Smith College School for Social Work, having completed her field training at a settlement house and child guidance clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota.

For the next four years she was a caseworker with the Charity Organization Society in New York City, supervising students from what came to be the Columbia University School of Social Work. In 1929, Oettinger moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, to serve as mental health consultant, a pioneering position in the local Visiting Nurse Association. In 1931 she married Malcolm Oettinger, a member of a prominent Scranton family who was then in the furniture business; the couple had two sons. A consultant in development and public relations, Malcolm Oettinger died of Parkinson's disease in 1962.

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