She was born Kaila Grobsmith[1] in Warsaw, Poland to Jewish parents, David, a shoe designer, and Lonia (née Babicz), a corsetiere.
Kate was raised in the Bronx, New York, and attended Hunter College where she earned a B.A.
This was followed by Wider World: Portraits in an Adolescence (1986) that told of her teen age period and college experiences.
[5] Her first husband (possibly common-law) was Dr. Stanley "Steve" Goldman, a deaf endocrinologist whom she had met at Hunter College.
Kate Simon was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1989, and died a year later, aged 77, at her Manhattan home.