Catherine Osann Gekker
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Catherine Osann Gekker, 82, a language teacher and artist, died of breast cancer Oct. 10 at Goodwin House in Alexandria, where she lived.
Mrs. Gekker taught German at the Foreign Service Institute in the 1960s and at McLean High School for eight years in the 1970s. She simultaneously taught  French, German and art in private schools and other public schools in Northern Virginia.
She was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, and moved to the United States in 1939. She graduated from Anacostia High School and worked for the War Department in the inspector general's office during World War II. She graduated from George Washington University and studied for three years at the Corcoran School of Art. She attended graduate school at the University of Virginia.
After marrying and spending two years in Sweden for her husband's work, she settled in Alexandria. She taught at public and private high schools, most recently at McLean High. In her 70s, she taught adult education part time in the English as a Second Language program in Alexandria.
She revealed some of the difficulties of teaching German in a 1994 letter to the editor of The Washington Post. One day in frustration, I begged an exceptionally bright student to try a little harder to master this ancient, beautiful language. His answer was: 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me, she wrote.
She was also an accomplished painter who exhibited in local shows, including some at the Corcoran, the Federal Aviation Administration, GWU's Lisner Auditorium and Georgetown University.
She wrote Practical German for the Tourist  (1976), which was sometimes used as a textbook for adults. She volunteered as a paralegal for the elderly through the George Washington University Law School, was program director for the Art League of Northern Virginia and was active in her civic association and in both the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington and Church of the Resurrection in Alexandria.
Her husband, Paul Gekker, died in 1971.
Survivors include two children, Katherine Gekker of Arlington and Chris Gekker of Bethesda; a sister; and two grandchildren.