She was preceded in death by her husband Gerald Alan Smith, a son, Michael Leon Smith, and her parents, Oscar Donald Sanborn and Irma Violet Sanborn (Lindley).

Cathy is survived by her four sons Jerome (Holly) Smith, Tracy (Erin) Smith, Gerald “Randal” Smith, Troy (Cory) Smith and seven grandchildren Caitlin “Cat” Smith, Sebastian “Spud” Smith, Hannah Mae Smith, Julian Smith, Quentin Smith, Leo Smith, Henley Smith and her brother Donald Sanborn.

Cathy lost her father to a farm accident at the tender age of seven, and she, her brother Donald, and their then single mother faced considerable hardship. To make ends meet, and to keep the mortgage payments current on the family farm, Cathy’s mother, Irma, went back to school to procure a teaching certificate. She bicycled on the weekends from Suttons Bay to Traverse City to sell produce from the farm to the markets in Traverse City, and during the week Irma rented a flat in Traverse City while Cathy spent the ensuing couple years shuffled under the care of various relatives as her mother struggled to save the farm in the pursuit of a better life for the children. Cathy’s childhood in this hardscrabble post-depression era shaped her character in many ways. She developed an intense work ethic, a keen appreciation for family, and an almost super-human desire to help others in the face of adversity.

In her teen years, Cathy’s classmates described her as fun-loving, upbeat, and carefree, despite the travails and traumas she endured in early childhood. She was the life of the party and known for her “lead-foot” driving escapades that always bested her frequent bouts with punctuality. After her high-school graduation, Cathy completed undergraduate studies in Education and French at Wayne State University. Graduating with honors, and conflicted to leave rural America for accepting an academic scholarship to study abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris, she made a life choice in favor of security and the yearning for family and married her highschool sweetheart, Jerry, on June 30, 1956, while he was stationed as a Marine at 29 Palms, California. There she launched her chosen career as an educator in the California dessert, teaching until Jerry’s military service ended.

The young couple then returned to Northern Michigan anxious to re-root themselves as they prepared to welcome their first child, Jerome Duane, who arrived in the world two months ahead of schedule with only 50-50 odds of survival. As in her earlier life, Cathy was traumatized by this ordeal and she penned a manuscript detailing the experience, but never chose to publish, including going through a very difficult labor on the road while traveling back to Northern Michigan from California. After touch and go for weeks in incubation, the tot survived, but the experience galvanized a fear of loss that lingered for a lifetime.

Over the next 13 years, Cathy and Jerry

1935 ~ 2025

expanded their family with four more sons: Michael Leon, Tracy Alan, Gerald Randal, and Troy Lynn. Known for their creativity in naming the children, Cathy’s friends often joked that she and Jerry must have been inspired by a Lakers game when they named the boys. Cathy loved the beach and the sun and shared that joy with her family. Life vacillated between school, cub scouts, piano lessons, sporting events, plays, the Congregational Church choir, and the typical extended family raucous environment with aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends always in tow. During these years Cathy dedicated herself to teaching and nurturing young minds while raising her five boys. She taught in the Suttons Bay Public School system from 1958 until her retirement in 1998, and her passion for education and her unwavering commitment to family and community left a lasting impact on all who knew her. As a young woman, her very first stint back at home was teaching Latin to young high-school minds, even though Latin was neither her specialty nor métier. The Superintendent knew Cathy personally, was unable to find a hire who specialized in Latin, and convinced Cathy to take the job. He fully trusted her ability. And Cathy didn’t disappoint. She diligently studied the next day’s lesson for two hours every night, eventually mastering a subject and language she never knew. Those who knew her recognize this kind of tenacity was ingrained in her DNA.

Cathy went on to specialize in special education, focusing on helping the mentally handicapped and emotionally disturbed, those with learning disabilities and special needs, along with the gifted and talented. She pursued graduate study over the summers, and ultimately earned her Masters Degree in Special Education from Michigan State University. In those days, this kind of education was not readily available in most small-town schools’ curriculums, so Cathy pioneered the county’s first “Resource Room,” giving special needs kids from all over Leelanau County and surrounding areas an opportunity for a customized education, something their home-town schools could not provide. Instead of creating a class lesson plan by subject for an entire class every week, Cathy created dozens of individual weekly lesson plans, each tailored for just one or two students. Her daily lesson books overflowed with post-it notes, paper clips, different colored inks, and tiny writing, dwarfing the lesson plans filed by her colleagues. As the only specialeducation teacher in Leelanau County, Cathy positively impacted the lives of hundreds of students and was loved and adored by all. She was the kind of teacher, who in addition to feeding their minds, would also fill their stomachs, as some of her students hailed from far-flung and imperfect domestic environments where breakfast was skipped. She did this on her own dime and used her own griddle. On any given morning that day’s study might include a lesson on nutrition, as well as a serving of a much-needed breakfast of juice, bacon, eggs and pancakes.

In addition to being a dedicated educator and mother of five, Cathy was also extremely active in the community. Whether she was captaining the local March of Dimes drive, fund-raising for St. Judes, sponsoring a child on another continent, or just sending a check to a needy cause, Cathy was generous to a fault. Among her most precious charitable endeavors, above all, were the gifts of herself. She rarely said no to any request to volunteer, to help for a worthy cause, or to roll up her sleeves to “do the right thing”, especially when children were involved. She always challenged the impossible and was determined to be in more than one place simultaneously, doubling down on her service to humanity. She was a firm believer that every day contained 25 hours, just as she knew she could pack one more plate or three more glasses into an alreadyfull dishwasher.

All these attributes gave Cathy a unique and adoring reputation. On foot between point A and B, Cathy didn’t walk. She ran. If en-route behind the wheel, she considered the slow, tried, and true inefficient. Her lead foot gained her considerable notoriety, as she wasted no time launching full speed into traffic. It is unknown how she managed to avoid citations. And of course, peppered among her many virtues, Cathy found little patience for relaxed agendas and schedules commencing and ending at certain intervals with unnecessary pauses for reflection. She flirted shamelessly with being perpetually late, was known to make rushed entrances, but always arrived just on time, as she called it, as there was always “just one more stop” to make or the need to squeeze in “just one more deed”.

For all this frenetic philanthropy and harried activity, Cathy had a wry sense of humor and liked to point out the fun and irony in everyday life. She was camera shy herself (or pretended to be) as she was always behind the camera documenting life. Not content to capture spontaneity, Cathy was in touch with her inner director, lining up her crews, looking for smiles, documenting birthdays and beach parties, graduations and more. And there was never a lack of blue-exploding flash bulbs (now a relic of the past) stocked in her purse, ever-ready to create indelible Kodak moments.

Cathy’s life was a testament to resilience, love, and devotion. She will be deeply missed by her family and friends and fondly remembered for the joy she brought into the lives of many.

May her memory bring comfort to all who knew her.

The funeral service was held Saturday, January 11th at the Suttons Bay Congregational Church. Burial in Keswick Maple Grove Cemetery will be announced in the spring.

Please share condolences with the family at www.martinson.info.

Arrangements are with the Martinson Funeral Home and Cremation Services of Leelanau.