Catherine Gaines was born on November 9, 1916 to the late John and Marie (pronounced Mary) Fuller Gaines in Washington, DC.  Although she spent all of her life in Washington, DC., she relishes the summers she spent “on the back road” in Sandy Spring, MD.  She has nostalgic memories of “going to the country” with her brother where they would stay with her Uncle Irving Fuller’s (her mother’s brother) family.  Her great uncle, Arthur Edward, lived near the current location of Mutual Cemetery and that is where she and her brother stayed.  She vaguely remembers a “cemetery up the hill a distance.”

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Ms. Catherine remembers those long summer days playing outside.  One summer she caught what she thought was a butterfly and it was actually a bee!  “Boy did my brother tease me about that”, she states.

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She recalls her mother owned a restaurant in Brinklow, MD.  Ms. Catherine recalls the Brinklow Inn which Bob Hill built.  She believes it is still standing, ‘it’s about one mile above Ashton on New Hampshire Avenue.  I think the house number is 18720.’  She also remembers Guyion and Luvenia Warren as neighbors.

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Ms. Catherine also lived in Hillandale, MD for a while.  She needed a change and moved here to the Bel Pre area in 2018.  Before the pandemic, she attended Sharp Street Church on a regular basis.  Prior to her move to Bel Pre, she faithfully attended Lincoln Temple Congregational Church in DC.

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Ms. Catherine, we humbly extend our thanks and gratitude to you for the two years you served in the Army.  She served her two years stateside and her last assignment was in Chicago, IL where she prepared military parts.  She is a retired Second Lieutenant.