Kathleen Deady Shortall was born on September 1, 1918, in Brockton, Massachusetts. She was the only child of Josephine and Carroll Deady, both of whom had immigrated from Ireland in 1900. Mr. Deady, who worked for the Internal Revenue Service, passed away during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Kathleen was only two months old. Her mother, who was subsequently employed by the IRS, raised Kathleen with the help of her extended family.
Kathleen attended St. Patrick's Elementary School and graduated from Brockton High School in 1935, at age 16. That fall, Kathleen entered Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the Radcliffe Regional Scholar from Massachusetts.
Kathleen loved her studies and college life at Radcliffe. She made many lifelong friends there. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year and served as president of her class in senior year. She graduated magna cum laude in 1939, with a B.A. in government. Kathleen went on to earn a masters in history from Hunter College in New York City.
From 1939-1941, Kathleen worked for an advertising agency and was a feature writer and columnist for The Boston Post. Her column, "On Your Own Time," focused on unearthing new and interesting things to do in the Boston area.
Kathleen moved to New York City in 1942, where she lived and worked for the next 37 years for Time, Inc. At Time, Inc., Kathleen was a researcher on Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Life Magazine. As a reporter at Life, she specialized in art, music, and dance and interviewed many of the preeminent American artists of the period. From 1964-1978, Kathleen was a picture editor at Time-Life Books Division -- in New York and, later, in Alexandria, Virginia -- where she worked on, among others, books about Michelangelo, Vermeer, Rubens, Leonardo, Cézanne, Titian, Matisse, Van Gogh, Gainsborough, and Whistler.
Kathleen married Thomas Gleason Shortall in 1943; they had been classmates in high school and at college. Thomas subsequently entered the Army and served in Italy as a medic. After the war, Kathleen and Thomas had a son, John Robert, in 1949. The couple separated in 1956. Kathleen raised her son on her own, while working full-time.
Following her retirement, Kathleen lived in Stony Brook, New York, pursuing her life-long passion for reading. In 1984, she moved to Washington, D.C. Kathleen passed away at home on October 30, 2003. She will be buried with her parents in Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Brockton, Mass.