Catherine G Wing

Catherine “Katy” Wing, shown in the photo holding her annual strawberry shortcake dinner, passed away recently in Gig Harbor, WA, from a recurrent brain tumor.  She was 71.

Katy was born in Port Townsend, WA, to Beverly Smith, a paper mill manager, and Margaret Smith, a librarian and homemaker.  While Katy was growing up, the family also lived in Lebanon, OR, and Camas, WA.  While attending high school, she enjoyed playing the piano and accompanying the school choir.  She graduated Camas High School in 1964.

Katy attended Clark College in Vancouver, WA, for a year and then transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle, where she majored in History and earned a BA degree in 1968.  Her plan all along was to go on to the UW Library School and earn her Master of Librarianship degree, which she completed in the summer of 1972.  Consistent with being a librarian, Katy was a life long reader.

In 1969, Katy married Russell Wing.  They met at the UW when they both lived in McMahon Hall, a co-ed dorm, a very cutting edge housing arrangement for the time.  They had two sons, Robert (1972) and James (1975), and were married for 48 years.  During their years together they lived in Athens, GA, Alameda and Palo Alto, CA, and Bellevue, Kirkland, Bainbridge Island, and Gig Harbor, WA.

When her kids were young and involved in soccer, Katy and a number of other soccer moms decided to form a team of their own.  Their team was the Mudhens, and they played in the Washington State Women’s Soccer Association.  Because team sports weren’t available to girls when she was young, this was her first chance to experience that, and she loved it.  At different times, she also coached both a youth boys team and an adult womens team.

When her kids were older and Katy was ready to rejoin the workforce full time, there were too many librarians for the number of available librarian jobs.  So she attended Shoreline Community College and earned an Associate Degree in Medical Record Technology.  Following graduation, she worked for a number of years in Medical Records and Quality Assurance at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.  During that time, she supported a number of process and care improvement projects.

Katy was a life long gardener.  She had a number of family gardens over the years, growing a mix of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.  She also worked on a couple of community gardens focused on providing food for local food banks.

Katy really enjoyed her family roles as daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, and grandmother.  Early in life she was a sister/mom to her youngest sister Janet.  As a mom, she helped run a co-op preschool, was an elementary school room mother and was a Cub Scout Den Mother.  She actively participated in many family trips, activities and parties.  Later in life she helped her mom with her dad and her mom’s medical issues.  She had been looking forward to many more years as a doting grandmother, but it was not to be.

Katy is survived by her husband Russ, sons Robert (Anna) and James, granddaughter Cora, sisters Bernice (Karl), Emmy (Wayne), Carolyn (Brad), Molly, and Janet (Chuck), brother-in-law Mike, and all of their families.

A Memorial Service will be held at Gig Harbor United Methodist Church, and cremation will be handled by Haven of Rest, Gig Harbor.

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