By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Kathryn Sue Vilter held a doctorate in biochemistry and did work on curing pellagra during the Great Depression. She also aided her husband, Dr. Richard W. Vilter, who established the Division of Hematology at University Hospital, in the research of nutritional anemias.

Dr. Vilter, 89, died Saturday at her East Walnut Hills home.

She was born Kathryn Sue Potter, daughter of Dr. Paul David Potter and Laura Owen Potter, in Chicago in 1914.

At 17 she entered Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she received a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1934 and a master's degree in 1936.

While studying at Wellesley, she met her future husband, a student at nearby Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vilter received a traveling fellowship from Wellesley to work toward a Ph.D. in biochemistry at any university. Since her husband would be serving an internship at Cincinnati General Hospital, she matriculated at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Dr. Tom D. Spies, associate professor of medicine and a researcher in nutritional deficiency diseases, offered her a job doing her thesis with him and Dr. Albert Matthews on the genesis and cure of pellagra - a dietary deficiency disease characterized by skin rashes and mental deterioration.

They set up a research laboratory in Birmingham, Ala., where Dr. Vilter and her husband journeyed each spring to participate in the studies.

After she received her Ph.D., Dr. Vilter assisted her husband in the study of folic acid and vitamin B12 deficiencies.

During her husband's 25 years as chairman of the department of internal medicine at UC, Dr. Vilter not only assisted and counseled him, she served as hostess to outings for medical residents.

A Richard W. and Sue P. Vilter endowed professorship of general internal medicine was established at the UC College of Medicine in 1999.

Dr. Vilter taught chemistry and biology at Hillsdale School in the mid-1960s.

She was a member of the Cincinnati Woman's Club and the woman's auxiliary of the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine, serving as president in the mid-1950s.

She was also a member of the College Club, the League of Women Voters, and the Wellesley Club.

She was preceded in death by her son, Richard W. "Bill" Vilter Jr., in 1990.

Survivors include her husband; three granddaughters, and three great-grandchildren.

Visitation is 1 p.m. Thursday followed by the funeral at 2 p.m. at Elden A. Good Funeral Home, 2620 Erie Ave. in Hyde Park.

Memorials: Richard W. and Sue P. Vilter Professorship of Internal Medicine, University of Cincinnati Foundation, P.O. Box 19970, Cincinnati 45219-0970.

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E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com