Kathryn Dawalt

KATHRYN MARIE KING DAWALT

Died May 28, 2020 at age 104 in Fairfax, Virginia.

Kathryn (“Karie”) Marie King Dawalt led an interesting and fulfilling life from her 1916 birth in Louisiana as an Army Daughter to living as an Army Wife, traveling the world for over 30 years with her husband, Brigadier General Kenneth F. Dawalt, and their two daughters, Karen and Karie.

At the end of World War I, Kathryn and her mother, Myrtle (both survivors of the Spanish flu) moved from station to station wherever the US Army sent her father, Lt. Colonel Arthur Edwin King. She graduated from Punahou Academy in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1934 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce and Economics from the University of Vermont in 1938.

Kathryn met Kenneth F. Dawalt, a young Lieutenant whose first assignment after graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1936, was Ft. Ethan Allen, Vermont. They married in 1940, embarking upon a career that would take them to many posts throughout the United States and abroad including Yokohama, Japan during the military occupation following World War II; NATO in Paris, France and the 30th Artillery Brigade in Okinawa. While assigned as an assistant physics professor at West Point from 1941-45, their two daughters were born.

The Dawalt family returned to Alexandria, Virginia in 1963 from overseas where they would continue to reside after General Dawalt’s retirement in 1970. During that time, Kathryn worked for seven years as Personnel Manager of the Smithsonian Institution Museum Shops. The couple moved to The Virginian Continuing Care Community, Fairfax in 1996. General Dawalt died in 2000.

An avid golfer, she was an active member of the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia playing competitive golf (shooting 3 holes in one) and serving a two-year term as President of the 18 Hole Women’s Association. Interested in fostering reading for young people as well as adults, Kathryn also served as Vice President of the Northern Virginia Literacy Council for several years. She followed and supported many DC area cultural activities with a love for art, dance, theater and music.

Kathryn Marie King Dawalt is survived by daughters Karen Baynard Gould and Karie Dawalt Nicholson along with her husband Anthony Nicholson. She is also survived by her grandson Ernest C. Baynard IV, his wife Lindsey Dickinson and three great grandsons Owen, Brendan and Holden. She will be buried by her husband in Arlington National Cemetery and near her parents, Lt. Colonel and Mrs. Arthur Edwin King.

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