Kathy War was born February 05, 1945 and raised in Helena, Montana. She and her husband, Tom married in 1968 while the status of the job market was uncertain. After a short time in Seattle, Washington, they came to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1970. War applied for a job with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' library. For the next four and a half years, she worked in the Curriculum Materials Library. She also worked in the Inter-Library loan department and eventually moved to Special Collections.