Kathy Howe-Kerr likes to live simply. She gardens in raised beds, reads mostly historical fiction, and enjoys “being out in nature.” But living simply isn’t just her preference. It’s her mantra.

“Although I realize it’s rather saccharine, I still like the saying ‘live simply so that others may simply live’,” she says quietly. Kathy has always been intentional about finding her place “down the food chain,” but she really learned what that was and how to do that living in a refugee camp in El Salvador in 1987.

About 1,200 people were in the camp, displaced from their land by civil war. Kathy was part of a team whose charge included monitoring military activity in the camp. “Soldiers would come there to harass and even to try to abduct the residents,” she says. “Part of our presence was to stop them from coming in.”

Life in the camp was “very basic.” They lived with no running water and no electricity, navigated night by candlelight, and ate basic foods.

Kathy was the only team member there the night a battalion of 400 soldiers showed up in black, wearing ski masks and bearing AK-47s. “I remember waking to whispers at my door that, ‘The soldiers are here! The soldiers are here!’” Ultimately, the soldiers left with no major incident, but she says one woman staring down 400 heavily armed soldiers was “daunting.”

Since living in the camp, Kathy carries a “respect for people who have gone through so much and yet are still hopeful, still plan for the future, still have children.”

That’s part of why she enjoys so deeply her work with Immigration Legal Services, where she began as office manager about eight years ago, and is now assistant director. “I love to interact with people from all over the world,” she says, noting that their clients are “some of the most vibrant in our community. It’s wonderful to be part of that.” She also enjoys that she gets to use her language skills—she’s fluent in Spanish—in her work.

When it comes to immigration, Kathy wishes that more people understood our common humanity. When you interact with people from many different cultures, she says, you begin to realize that we all want the same things. “We want our families to be well, for our children to be safe and educated, to know stability and security. Others are not so different from us.”

Kathy and her husband moved to Louisville from Pueblo, Colorado, in 2013, and she still misses the “sense of wilderness” of the geography but finds the beauty of spring in Kentucky just as captivating. Spring is also when she readies those raised beds for greens, kale, broccoli, peppers, eggplant, and zucchini. She’s learning how to help pollinators and, as part of that, plants flowers native to our area.

This year, Kathy will read at least 30 novels, mostly historical fiction because “I really like to learn something.” Among her recent favorites are The Island of the Sea Women, The Beekeeper of Allepo, and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Kathy keeps a list of books if you’re looking for more suggestions.

 

PHOTO CAPTIONS:
Kathy at Glacier Park.
Kathy and husband trekking in Utah.
Those beautiful raised beds.