Anna Katherine Molster, 85, an editorial assistant for the Washington Evening Star for 40 years, died April 29 of endocarditis at
Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville. She had lived in the same house in the Brookland section of the District, near
Catholic University, from age 4 until recently.
Mrs. Molster was born in Takoma Park and graduated from McKinley Technical High School in 1935. In 1939, she received her
bachelor's degree from George Washington University, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Alpha Lambda
Delta fraternity.
She went to work for the Evening Star in 1941. As an editorial assistant for columnists Mary McGrory, James J. Kilpatrick and
others, she was something of a grammarian and unofficial copy editor. She retired from the newspaper on the day it closed,
Aug. 7, 1981.
In retirement, Mrs. Molster cared for her aging parents. After they died, she established a daily routine of riding the Metro from
Brookland to Friendship Heights, where she would take in a movie, browse through a bookstore -- she was a lifelong avid
reader -- or have lunch with friends at her favorite establishment, the American Cafe.
She was such a regular that the cafe, before it went out of business, put up a plaque in her honor on the wall above her favorite
booth.
As a young woman, she had taken numerous cross-country trips, either by train or car. In her later years, she took frequent day
trips as a Smithsonian Institution associate. She also enjoyed opera.
An environmentalist, she was a lifelong bird-watcher. A relative was pleased to inform her, just a few days before her death, that
the fabled ivory-billed woodpecker was not extinct after all.
She leaves no immediate survivors.
2005