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NO. 428 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION
DAUGHTER DIPLOMATS
A DEBUT BOOK BY CATHERINE GRACE KATZ OF WINNETKA REVEALS THE UNTOLD STORY OF THREE YOUNG WOMEN WHO ACCOMPANIED THEIR FAMOUS FATHERS TO A HISTORIC CONFERENCE 75 YEARS AGO. BY RONI MOORE NEUMANN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
Catherine Grace Katz’s earliest memories of growing up in Winnetka were of her mother, Andy Katz, reading books to her and her siblings—everything from the classics to Harry Potter. She also recalls the influence of her firstgrade teacher at Greeley School in Winnetka. “Miss White let me go to the library every day. It was a special privilege. And every day, I was able to check out not one, but two books. I was in heaven,” says Katz, today an author and historian with degrees in history from Harvard and Cambridge with a JD at Harvard Law School in progress. “I love the feel, the smell of books.” Reading and learning were a priority of the high-achieving Katz household. And it was perhaps those early seeds of discovery and storytelling that inspired her to turn a research project into a book that’s already capturing international attention. The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans tells the story of three young women who accompanied their famous fathers to a February 1945 conference that proved pivotal in the reorganization of Germany and Europe. “I did not intend to focus my academic research on Winston Churchill, but he had somewhat accidentally become a focus of both my senior thesis and dissertation,” says Katz, the eldest of three, with Oliver, 24, a University of Chicago graduate, now pursuing a master’s
degree at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and Anna, 18, a rising first year student, at the University of Chicago. The path that led her to that moment was filled with similar achievements and accolades. After graduating from New Trier, Katz earned a coveted spot at Harvard, where she majored in history with a minor in economics. Outside of the classroom, she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and Co-Chair of the Quincy House Committee, for which she received the Aloian-Beal Leadership Award. The award that meant most to her, however, was a bit more unique—the Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting for an entry inspired by her grandmother’s original Nancy Drew mystery collection from the 1930s. She graduated magna cum laude in the Harvard Class of 2013. While at Harvard, Katz worked as an intern for Goldman Sachs but turned down a job offer there to move to England to pursue her master’s in history at the University of Cambridge, a dream since childhood. “That singular year at Cambridge is one that I will always treasure,” says Katz, who then traded pastoral Cambridge for Manhattan following graduation—joining a highly competitive analyst program at a leading asset management firm. As it turns out, she didn’t leave England far behind. In the lobby of her office was a bookstore, Chartwell Booksellers, named for Churchill’s country home. During coffee breaks on long days filled with Excel spreadsheet modeling, Katz would visit the bookstore where she met the owner, who became a kindred spirit and later introduced her to the International Churchill Society. It was there that she also met members of the Churchill family who wanted a young historian to mine the newly released collection of the papers of Sarah Churchill, Winston’s daughter, and write an article about the two. These papers were back at Cambridge and Continued on PG 8
Catherine Grace Katz of Winnetka, shown here in a Maje dress, is the author of a new book about three famous daughters who were part of history during World War II. PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRANK ISHMAN