Kathryn Esplin-Oleski, age 68 of Belmont, Massachusetts, died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday, August 16, 2020. She died at Emory Hospital in Atlanta.
Kathryn was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to her father, Dr. Don Esplin, and her mother, Billie Leigh Esplin. She was married from 1986 to 2020 to Dr. John Oleski, clinical psychologist with a principal practice in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
In 1968, her family moved to Montreal, where her father was a professor at McGill University. Kathryn completed high school in Montreal, then earned her CEGEP from Dawson College before entering McGill, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English with honors.
Kathryn briefly lived and worked in Toronto and Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Boston in 1979. In 1983, she earned her master’s in journalism at Northwestern University. This included an internship in Washington, D.C., where she reported on politics and other subjects.
A highly talented writer, editor and journalist, the first part of Kathryn’s career was spent reporting, writing and editing on the rapidly growing field of digital technology. This included a job at Digital News and another one at MIT, consulting to W3C. During this latter job, she occasionally met with Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.
In 1998, Kathryn was editor for one of the first books on HTML, authored by famed British computer scientist Dave Raggett.
Kathryn loved reading and writing, being in nature, painting, running and other exercise, and family vacations in the White Mountains, Montreal and Europe. She traveled extensively in the United States, Canada and Europe. She had a special fondness for cats, including her beloved Cheddar, who was with her for 17 years.
She is survived by her husband, Dr. John Oleski, her son Stephen Oleski and his wife Isabel Tran, her daughter Kristina Oleski and her partner Basil Syed, her sisters Debbie Esplin and Mari Rogers, and her step-brother Peter Zablocki. She is also survived by in-laws, nieces, nephews and their families in the U.S. and Canada.
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