Katheryn's father immigrated to America from Trogir, Croatia in late 1910, but because of economics followed by the first world war, her mother and two older siblings Winifred and Paul did not arrive until 1921. After the family reunited, the Emer's added three more children into the fold, with Katheryn being the first of three born on American soil, followed by Anne and Mary. As a first-generation American, she graduated from Roseville Joint Union High School in 1939. Then in 1940, Kay became a security guard at the Sacramento Air Depot, (S.A.D.), renamed McClellan A.F.B. in 1948. She married a young serviceman in 1942, a flight instructor killed in a Merced, Ca. plane crash the following year. She subsequently fell in love with and married Robert Richard Jessee in 1949, who also worked at McClellan Field. Katherine left her employment after 10 years in 1950, to begin her family with Bob. Their firstborn was son Kirk in January 1951, then daughter Robin in 1957. The Jessee's owned a duplex in Sacramento County, living in one half and renting out the other. But as their family grew larger, they eventually sold the small duplex and moved to Carmichael, where both children attended El Camino High School. Their home in Carmichael was occasionally the site of the 4th of July celebrations, with the standard barbeque, fireworks, and swimming in their family pool. But Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations at her sister's home in Roseville, always afforded her and her siblings an opportunity to socialize. Before her mother died in 1958, the sisters conversed only in Slovenian, but as time passed, conversations were spoken in both languages until finally Slovenian was never spoken at all. Aunt Kay's premature death was an unexpected tragedy, which devastated her immediate family and her extended family as well.

Scott Adell
2021