Catherine Ann Sullivan Hatch was born in August of 1935 to Joseph and Josephine Sullivan of Oceanside, New York. She graduated in 1953 from Oceanside High School, and spent a year at the University of Bridgeport before switching to secretarial school. She worked and lived in New York City for a while before moving back to Long Island. In 1958, she met an Air Force airman from Bellingham, Washington, named David Hatch, who was stationed on Long Island. David talked Cathy into giving him her phone number, and six months later they were married at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Oceanside.
The next year David was honorably discharged and they moved west, first to Bellingham where they had their first child, Linda, and a year later to north Seattle, where their sons Jeffrey and Thomas were born. Cathy worked at Boeing and later, with David, at Puget Power, but when David got a job as an engineering sales representative, they moved to Mercer Island in 1970. They were both involved in many of their children’s activities, including soccer and ski school, and Cathy was the president of the PTA at Mercer View, and even started a scholarship program in the mid 1970’s.
Cathy worked at several different secretarial services, as well as for an architect on the Island, until, in 1981, their 14-year- old son Tom was diagnosed with cancer. Cathy quit her job to care for Tom full time, driving him to appointments, or staying with him while he was in the hospital for treatment. Tom died of complications from a bone marrow transplant four months after his diagnosis.
After Tom’s death, Cathy took some time off, but eventually she began working at Farmer’s New World Life on the Island as a secretary, and later as the Supervisor of Office Services. She retired after 19 years, in 2001, and in 2012 she and David decided to sell their Mercer Island home to move closer to their children and grandchildren in Renton.
Cathy loved to garden, and grew beautiful roses at their Mercer Island home. She also enjoyed travel, and visited Europe several times with her sister, took a cruise to Alaska, and made multiple trips to Hawaii and New York. Her last trip was to New York in 2014, where she visited family and some favorite spots of her childhood.
After a gradual decline in health over the last three years, Cathy passed away at UW/Valley Medical Center on September 8th, 2015. She is survived by her husband, David; daughter and son-in-law Linda and Alan Halvorson, their children, Caitlin and Christian, and son and daughter-in-law, Jeff and Laura Hatch, and their children, Michael, Joseph, Jeremy, Nathaniel, David, Johnny, Carina and Steven, all of Renton. There will be a Rosary Vigil service on Wednesday, Sept. 23rd, at 7:00 p.m., and a Funeral Mass and reception on Thursday, September 24th at 10:30 a.m., at St. Anthony’s in Renton. For more details about Cathy’s life and funeral information, please go to molesfarewelltributes.com.
