Anna Catharine Grace

Anna Catharine "Kitty" Kidd Grace (born October 14, 1922 in Birmingham; died October 1, 2015) was an educator and benefactor of libraries and Catholic churches.

Anna Catharine was the daughter of William and Della McLaughlin Kidd of Birmingham. She graduated from Birmingham-Southern College and taught English at Auburn University and at Crossville High School in DeKalb County. She continued her education at the University of California in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

In 1946 she married Michael Grace, a Huntsville native who served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. The ceremony was held at St Paul's Catholic Church in Birmingham on September 5. He completed a degree in engineering at Auburn University and founded APCOM, a manufacturer of appliance component,s in Franklin, Tennessee in 1969. They had four children, Jonathan, Roger, Laura, and Courtney.

In Brentwood, Tennessee Kitty founded the Blue Grass Regional Library, a predecessor of the current John P. Holt Brentwood Library which was then located in space borrowed from Brentwood Cleaners. She also contributed a weekly column to the Franklin Review Appeal promoting philanthropy and was a founding member of Holy Family Catholic Church there.

After Mike Grace's death in 1983, she donated a new pipe organ to the St Mary of the Visitation in Huntsville in his memory. She moved back to Birmingham and became a major benefactor of the sacred music program. She established a fund to support liturgical music across the Diocese of Birmingham. Sha also made specific donations, including an electric organ for Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and a set of English change-ringing bells for the Cathedral of St Paul. She funded a project at St Bernard's Abbey in Cullman to transcribe and publish a collection of Benedictine monastic hymns and chants.

In appreciation of her generosity, the Roman Catholic Church inducted her into the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.

Grace died in 2015 and was buried alongside her husband at Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville. She was survived by two siblings and two of her children, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her bequest to the Cathedral of St Paul made possible the acquisition and installation of what was dedicated as the Anna Catharine Grace Memorial Pipe Organ.

External links

• Anna Catharine Grace at Findagrave.com