Catherine S. Rykowski, a retired Hutzler's department store sales associate who earlier had been a secretary, died in her sleep Dec. 26 at Oak Crest Village retirement community. She was 91.

Catherine Sawecki, the daughter of a city police officer and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park.

She was a 1935 graduate of Eastern High School and attended Strayer's Business College. During the late 1930s and early '40s, she was employed as a secretary for the Southern Supply Co. Inc.

She was married in 1943 to Edward Rykowski, an Army officer. After the end of World War II, he returned to Baltimore and took over operation of J.T. Rykowski & Son, a family-owned hardware store, on Hudson Street.

Mr. Rykowski died in 1979.

Mrs. Rykowski became a mother and a homemaker, and in 1955 moved to Towson.

During the 1970s, she returned to work as a sales associate in the junior's department at Hutzler's Towson department store. She retired in the late 1980s.

She became an avid world traveler and enjoyed collecting "many things," family members said.

She was a communicant of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Towson.

A memorial Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. today in the chapel at Oak Crest Village, 8820 Walther Blvd., Parkville.

Surviving are a son, Edward M. Rykowski Jr. of Chevy Chase; a daughter, Mary Kathryn Rykowski Kane of Towson; and four grandchildren.

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