Katherine Roels

Source Information:

FreeBMD. England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Ancestry.com. 1901 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.

Year: 1926; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 5; Page Number: 224

The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 778

Katherine Lilian Reynolds Roels was born on the 23rd of July 1893 in Folkestone, England in the scenic county of Kent.  Her mother, Lilian, although of English parentage, was born in Italy, and her father, name unknown, was born in New York.  Katherine had three sisters and one brother.

Katherine Reynolds arrived in New York in 1926 with a stated profession of "shorthand typist."  In 1930, she was living in a boarding house and working as a stenographer.  A few year later she became an American citizen and by 1940 had met the man she would marry, a Belgium-born writer named August Roels.

She and August traveled together throughout Europe in the 1950's and married in New York in 1958.  There is no record of any children.  

Katherine died at the Coler-Goldwater Memorial Hospital, Roosevelt Island on the 4th of December 1984 and was buried on Hart Island on the 31st of January 1985.

August Roels is also buried on Hart Island, but sadly, not in the same plot as Katherine.