Kathleen M. Shimkaveg, a homemaker and a devout Roman Catholic, died Jan. 12 of leukemia at her Lutherville home. She was 71.

The former Kathleen Marie Allgood, daughter of John and Kay Allgood, was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. She was a 1966 graduate of Seton High School and attended Villa Julie College, now Stevenson University, for two years.

In 1970, she married Albert V. “Al” Shimkaveg and worked as a medical secretary from 1970 to 1973. Eventually, the couple settled on Rider Avenue in Riderwood, where they raised her three sons.

She went to work in 1998 as a travel agent for Roeder Travel Inc. in Timonium, from which she retired in 2015.

Mrs. Shimkaveg was a longtime communicant and minister of the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity in Lutherville-Timonium, where she was active in the youth ministry and marriage preparation ministry and was a small-group leader. She was an Our Daily Bread volunteer and a longtime member of the Catholic Evidence League.

She also worked as a caregiver for elderly members of her Seminary Ridge neighborhood, offering in-home care, shopping and pastoral care.

A world traveler and inveterate bridge player, Mrs. Shimkaveg was an avid fan of contemporary pop Christian music and live concerts, family members said.

A son, Michael V. Shimkaveg of Lutherville, described his mother in an email as being “spiritual, deeply religious, compassionate, selfless, warm and loving, smart, insightful and funny,” adding, “She never sat still. She was a doer.”

A Mass of Christian burial was offered at her church Jan. 20.

In addition to her son, she is survived by her husband of 49 years, a retired accountant with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; two other sons, Brian W. Shimkaveg of Bethesda and Scott Shimkaveg of Hamilton; three sisters, Eileen Lane and Mary Kay Allgood, both of Ocean Pines, and Maureen Wienecke of Ellicott City; and six grandchildren.

— Frederick N. Rasmussen