Katherine Sebastian Minteer Szabo, 9-28-1946, died at home in St. Louis on September 5, 2020.

Kate grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, the third child of the late Mary and Robert D. Minteer. She graduated from Webster Groves High School and studied art at the University of Kansas. Kate was an artist, an art collector and an adventurer with a zest for life and a positive outlook. Fifty years ago she hitched-hiked across the country with her best friend, Tonia Bouska. When they got to San Diego, where her brother Jack lived, she fell in love with the city and the ocean, and decided to stay.

Kate worked as a commercial artist, a printer, an antique dealer, a market researcher and as assistant manager of an R.V. park, a job she loved, where she got to use her people skills and her knowledge of her adopted city. She loved to travel. She and her husband Stretch (John Szabo) lived for several years in their Airstream, camping all over the west. Later she was thrilled to visit Paris, twice, with her friend Robert McLauren.

In 2018, Kate returned to St. Louis to be with her family, renewing old friendships and making new ones. We will miss her quick wit, her appreciation of beauty, and her lively sense of humor. She lifted us up. She made us laugh.

She is survived by her sister, Susan Bishop; nephews Joseph Bishop (Melissa) and Michael Bishop (Angie Longi); great-nieces and nephew Grace, Katy and John Michael and their families, her great-greats. And many friends. She lost her husband of thirty years, John Szabo, her brother Robert (Jack) Minteer, and brother-in-law Everett (Stew) Stewart.

May the pure light of her spirit shine in those of us who love her.

We will celebrate Katie’s life as soon as we can safely gather together.