CATHERINE ELIZABETH GRIFFITHS STEPHENS

BANGOR – Catherine Elizabeth Griffiths Stephens, 91, died Oct. 23, 2009, in Bangor, after a valiant struggle against Alzheimer’s disease. She was born Sept. 6, 1918, in Cuba, Ill., to William Bradley Griffiths, a coal miner born in Lancashire, England, and Maude Moore Griffiths, whose ancestors fought for American independence from Britain. When she was 6 she moved with her family to Peoria, Ill. In 1936 when she was 18, within 24 hours of one another her father died from Black Lung Disease and her 13-year-old brother, Billy, died from a strep throat infection. Her older brother was married with a family of his own, and she and her mother went to work to survive the Great Depression. On April 1, 1939, she married blue-eyed John Howard Stephens of Villisca, Iowa. When he was ordered overseas with the U.S. Army in 1944 she returned to Peoria, Ill., with their newborn twin daughters to live out the duration of World War II with her mother and her mother’s sister, Olladene. After the war in 1947, she and her husband and daughters moved to barren acreage north of Boulder, Colo., where they built a basement house and throughout the next 52 years carried rocks, dug cactus, killed rattlesnakes, fought prairie fires and flash floods, planted lilacs, had a second set of twins, and ultimately achieved their dream of a comfortable house in a grove of Chinese elm, Russian olive, hackberry, blue spruce, black walnut, maple, mountain ash and peach trees. Katie to her family, Kay to her colleagues, worked as a secretary for Seagram’s Distillery and Laidlaw Steel and Wire, Peoria, Ill., and for Esquire Magazine, Boulder, Colo., as a medical secretary for Boulder Medical Center, and as an administrative assistant for the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colo. She retired in 1981 as the education and training officer for the Boulder installation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the 1970s her mother moved to Boulder, Colo., to live with her, and she cared for her mother for nearly 20 years until her mother’s death in 1989 at age 98. For 30 years, a good part of it while working full time, she took classes whenever she could at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo., and in 1996 at the age of 77, she earned her bachelor’s degree in history. In 1999 her husband of 60 years died. She lived on alone for three more years until her unequivocal intent to stay in the home she and her husband had built no longer could be safely sustained. In 2002 at the age of 84 she moved to Bangor and embarked on her final work, to live as an autonomous and respected being with dignity and a fully intact sense of self in the face of the relentless, incomprehensively intrusive and ravaging toll of Alzheimer’s disease. She loved her family, her friends, music, dancing, reading, dogs, chocolate, penny stocks, wheat pennies, genealogy, travel, political argument and fun. She was a refuge and a guide for her children and ultimately, a model of indomitable courage. She was predeceased by her parents; her brothers, Lewis Stanley Griffiths and John William Griffiths; and a great-granddaughter, Madelyn Grace Taylor. She is survived by her children: twins, Cheryl Lynn Vincent and husband, Dennis, of Northfield, Minn., and Catherine Leigh McCarthy and husband, John, of Bangor and twins, Joy Ellen Taylor of Florissant, Mo., and John William Stephens of Fort Collins, Colo.; 11 grandchildren, Cheryl Vincent, Stephen Vincent, Liam McCarthy, Gavin McCarthy, Robin Wilson, Matthew Taylor, Jannette Cohen, Thomas Taylor, Renee Taylor, Patrick Stephens and Levi Stephens; and 11 great-grandchildren, William and Kayleigh Abbott, Jadelyn, Ryan and Devon Vincent, Devon Stephens, Orrin, Nolan and Olivia Wilson and Rachel and Olivia Taylor. Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, at Mark Lange Funeral Home, Cuba, Ill., with viewing preceding the services 10 a.m. She will be buried with her husband, parents, brothers, grandparents and great-grandparents at Cuba Cemetery, Cuba, Ill. Contributions in memory of Catherine Stephens may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, Maine Chapter, 170 U.S. Route 1, Suite 250, Falmouth, ME 04105 or to your local Alzheimer’s Association. A service of Brookings-Smith, Bangor.