Catherine C. Genthner, dietician who started her own diabetes practice, dies

Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun
·4 min read

Catherine C. Genthner, an institutional dietician who later maintained a private practice, died of ovarian cancer April 15 at her Timonium home. She was 71.

“Catherine was very friendly, warm, outgoing and family-oriented,” said Irene J. Beyth, a former University of Maryland Medical Center dietician and colleague.

Cecilia Catherine Locsin Castro, daughter of Benjamin C. Castro, a businessman, and Teresita Locsin Castro, a department store sales associate, was born one of nine in Bacolod, Philippines, and raised in Manila.

She was a graduate of Malate Catholic School and earned a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from St. Scholastica’s College, both in Manila.

“At one point in their lives, Catherine’s parents operated a cafeteria in the Philippines,” said her husband of 34 years, James A. Genthner. “That may have been the reason that her father suggested she become a dietician.”

She worked briefly in the Philippines before coming to the United States in 1974, when she took a job as a guide at the Philippine pavilion at the International Exposition on the Environment that was held in Spokane, Washington.

Mrs. Genthner then moved to Boston where she joined her family who had settled there and took a job as a dietician at what is today Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

After her father moved to Baltimore in the mid-1970s when he established a small business, she began working as a dietician at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

“We were young dieticians in our early 20s and Catherine was part of our close group of three,” said Ms. Beyth, who retired in 2019 from a Westfield, New Jersey, long-term care facility.

“She was quiet and serious and excelled at her work. She was also a good sport when it came to camping or whitewater rafting,” she said.

Mrs. Genthner became chief dietician at what is now the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.

While there, she obtained a master’s degree in administration from the Carey Business School at the Johns Hopkins University.

She subsequently worked as a diabetes educator at a pharmaceutical company and Greater Baltimore Medical Center before establishing a private diabetes practice called Jacinata Nutrition and Diabetes Education Services on West Road in Towson in the 2000s. She retired in 2021.

A devout Roman Catholic, Mrs. Genthner was a communicant of Church of the Nativity in Timonium, where she taught catechism and was a member of the parking ministry.

“We have a front and back lot with 350 parking spots, and our job is to manage in and out traffic and we use walkie talkies, ” said Al Riggio, a church member who volunteers with the parking ministry.

“Catherine decided to take a shot at it and found it interesting, so we worked the 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon Mass for five years together,” he said.

The parking ministry would meet at 4:15 p.m. for “a huddle,” Mr. Riggio said, and then donned their yellow jackets in winter or mesh yellow and blue mesh vests in the warmer months.

“She enjoyed doing that because she was very affable and had a great smile. She was an ombudsman for the church and was the first thing our parishioners saw coming and going. You couldn’t help but like her.”

In 1989, she married James Genthner, a retired real property specialist for the Maryland State Highway Administration, and the couple lived on Kelway Road in Original Northwood until moving to Timonium in 2005.

A fellow hospital worker gave her a rabbit one day, and her husband wasn’t pleased with this gift.

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“By the next morning, Catherine had second thoughts about the rabbit but I wouldn’t let her get rid of the bunny,” Mr. Genthner said. “I then kept rabbits as companions for 30 years.”

Mrs. Genthner enjoyed bargain hunting.

“I called it retail therapy, but she was harmless,” her husband said, with a laugh.

She and her husband dined frequently at the Ashland Cafe, Bar and Grill in Cockeysville and Baugher’s in Westminster.

“But her main hobby was work, work work,” Mr. Genthner said.
She also enjoyed attending family reunions of her siblings which were called “CastroFests” and occurred several times a year.

A funeral Mass was offered at her church April 20.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by two brothers, Juan Manuel “Nanny” Castro, of Nottingham, and Carolos Castro, of Framingham, Massachusetts; four sisters, Lorna McGinty and Cristina Palmisano, both of Baltimore, Marijo Fadrigalan, of East Taunton, Massachusetts, and Ana Dempsey, of Weymouth, Massachusetts; and many nieces and nephews.