Vale Kathleen Tinkel

[annc]

It is with great sadness that I have to report to you all that Kathleen Tinkel lost her battle with cancer on 21st November. Her husband Jack was with her at the end, and was joined by one of his and Kathleen's oldest friends soon after. This friend is helping Jack deal with the emotional and physical challenges he has to face now.

I've known Kathleen for around 20 years, ever since I joined the Desktop Publishing Forum on CompuServe. She helped me improve my skills as a document designer and typesetter with encouragement, incisive but never cruel criticism and – mostly – by example. She also taught me the art of being a sysop, an art that is sadly missing in many of the online forums today.

But Kathleen was much more than a sysop on an online forum. She learnt about type at college, then started work at a newspaper. Her working life always revolved around type and design, and she was also an early adopter of computer technology, buying one of the first Macs in 1984. A talented writer, she contributed to leading journals for many years.

Over the years of working together on forums, Kathleen and I became friends, sharing forum management both on CompuServe and later in our independent forum endeavour here. We had long online chats when this became possible, developing the ability to carry on a conversation covering several topics at a time and keeping track of all of them! During some of these chats, we performed major upgrades to the forum software while simultaneously discussing everything from world and domestic politics to the mundane such as plumbing, meal planning and irritating neighbours. And everything in between. I dunno about KT, but I also managed to cook and eat meals, set and move garden sprinklers, and do the washing including hanging everything on the line.

Kathleen was one of those people who influenced everyone she met. She was also a great raconteur, and I have fond memories of the vignettes she would drop into discussions in both business sections and the Pub. Please express your feelings and contribute your favourite KT stories here for all to enjoy.

[BobRoosth]

My daughter and I had the pleasure of meeting her for lunch in the winter of 2000. I don't recall much of that meal other than it was near the LIRR tracks and we had a good visit. I have valued her advice on typography issues over the years. We will all miss her sage advice and good humor.

[mksf]

I'm so sorry to hear this. KT and I "met" in the Internet Publishing Forum many years ago, and she quickly became my Mac guru.

[annc]

Originally Posted by mksf

I'm so sorry to hear this. KT and I "met" in the Internet Publishing Forum many years ago, and she quickly became my Mac guru.

I'm not surprised.

[marlene]

I was stunned and saddened to hear the bad news. Although I rarely visit the forum these days, I've thought about Kathleen often, and hoped she was winning her battle.

She will be missed.

[jgr]

I am so very sorry to learn of Kathleen's death. What a loss to us all who knew her... her smile, her quick wit, her deft hand with a spaghetti carbonara... Rest in peace, friend. Rest in peace.

-- Judy G. Russell

[Howard Allen]

This is terrible news. I was concerned that we hadn't seen her on the forum recently, but I guess I'd hoped that she was just busy doing other things. I considered Kathleen to be the keystone of the DTP Forum, and I know she will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

[Steve Rindsberg]

Kathleen was one of ... maybe the only ... Grand Ladies of this thing we call DTP.

When I first stumbled my way through Compuserve in mid 80s, I somehow found the DTP forum, and while I had only a peripheral interest in DTP, kept coming back because I learned so much that was genuinely useful to me from KT (and the rest of the rogue's gallery who were regulars there.)

[terrie]

This such sad news...

Sometime around 1991 I got my first modem. I signed up for both AOL and Compuserve spending the first few days (after the weekend in hell trying to get the modem to work...'-}}) fumbling around in AOL and Compuserve wondering why anyone would spend time in either place until I stumbled across Compuserve's Horses forum which was a revelation. I quickly checked out AOL's equine forum and equally quickly realized how superior Compuserve's forum software was. I dropped AOL for Compuserve and never looked back.

I struck up a forum friendship with a Horses forum member and the 2 of us along with a local friend of mine developed a series of equine-based clipart images. We all did drawings which I sent to my online friend in TX to be scanned--I didn't own a scanner then. She emailed the scans back to me or maybe she sent them on a couple of floppy disks--can't remember. At any rate, using CorelDraw3 which I'd acquired someplace and having no real idea of what I was doing, I played with the images creating 2 equine clipart packages--one for English-based riders and one for Western-based riders.

Wanting to know more about what I was doing, I found Compuserve's Corel and Adobe forums which eventually lead me to the DTP forum--they were all so interrelated with common membership across the fourms. I eventually purchased my first version of Photoshop (4) and then Pagemaker. It was KT (and Ann and a number of others) who helped me learn how to use PageMaker, who helped feed my addiction to fonts, who taught me page layout and generally supported my efforts to learn with kindness and humor.

KT will be greatly missed...

Terrie

[cornicello_photo]

So sad to hear this. I must go back around 22 or more years. KT was always there encouraging me as I picked up and moved to Seattle over 19 years ago. Before that I was always a welcome guest for some wonderful meals with her, Jack, and friends. KT always encouraged me to at least TRY eating some vegetables. She also taught me a lot about type and design.

She and Jack actually got me back into photography via some sample images they posted from a new Olympus digital camera so many years ago. I was quite impressed with their images and went out and bought a new camera. And then another a few months later, then another. And another. Hmm..., I should have sent a bill for all that.

It has been a while since we talked/typed. But still a big emptiness knowing that we won't get to talk again.

Cheers to you KT. And best wishes to Jack. Our thoughts are with you!

John Cornicello