Catherine Irene (Hearing) Curtis

Catherine Irene Hearing was born in Healdsburg at the Dr. Seawell Sanitarium on North Street to Lloyd and Irene (Kelly) Hearing. She and her older sister Margaret grew up in Healdsburg, where Catherine remembered having great fun going to the river and boating, and driving around town in her friend's pony cart. She met Kenneth Charles Curtis, and they married in 1942. While he was enlisted in the Coast Guard during the war, she worked in Oakland and took evening classes in Berkeley. They had two children: Marilyn Ann Curtis in 1945 and Thomas Charles Curtis in 1956. The family lived in Healdsburg, where Ken was a salesman for Colgate-Palmolive and Catherine worked as a real estate agent. She and Ken developed one of the first Kiwi orchards in the area, in the Dry Creek Valley, not far from where she spent so much of her childhood on the family's ranch. We remember her gardens there to be prolific.

After Ken's death in 1987, Catherine continued to work in real estate, at Mid-Towne Realty, making countless friends in the community. She moved into town, where she continued to tend a beautiful garden. She volunteered at the Healdsburg Museum, through which she met her long-time companion, Robert Rawlings. They enjoyed traveling together throughout California and farther afield.

For the last two years of her life, Catherine moved to Sonora, California to be closer to her family. She is survived and missed by her grandsons Jason and Kevin Sevier, their wives Crystal and Eliza, her great-grandchildren Carsten and Maren, and her beloved nephew Robert Stuart. She was predeceased by her husband Ken, both their children, her companion Bob, and many dear friends.

Published in Healdsburg Tribune · March 2, 2023