Catherine Deiner Simpson

March 20, 1912 - January 25, 2014

Our Mother, Catherine Diener Simpson, passed away on January 25, 2014. She died peacefully at her residence at Rockwood Hawthorne in Spokane. She had visited with family and friends over her last several days and we all had a chance to express to her our love for this most wonderful woman.

Catherine was born on the Diener Family farm near Wilbur, WA. She followed her peripatetic father’s wanderings and attended school in Lewiston, ID, Vauxhall, Alberta, Deer Park, WA and ultimately graduated high school at Newport, WA in 1930. She went to Washington State College 1930-1931. She then went to Cheney Normal School where she met Claude Lewis Simpson, her husband-to-be. She left Cheney with a teaching certificate in 1933 and subsequently taught school for a year in a 1-room school at Duley Lake on the Okanogan Highlands; 2 years in Nome Alaska, lured there by the promise of a good salary and a great adventure; and later, 1 year at Union Gap. Catherine went back to college at WSU and earned a BA in 1960 and an MA in Education in 1962.

Catherine and Claude married at Sandpoint, ID, in 1936 and the union lasted 63 years until his death in 1999. The couple lived in Union Gap, WA, Ellensburg, WA, and then finally in Pullman, WA, where Claude joined the faculty at WSC. They raised 3 children, Jack Diener (5/18/37) Peggy Maureen (3/31/39-4/23/86) and Charles Alfred (12/16/47).

Catherine worked at WSC and then in 1952 founded Pullman Kindergarten where she taught thousands of 5-year-olds until 1969. She and Claude “retired” in 1970 but moved to Sydney Australia where Catherine supervised student teachers in the Infants’ Department of Whelen School at Mt. Druitt, NSW for 2 years.

The couple returned to their Priest Lake home at Beaver Creek where they lived happily for many years, getting snowed in and wintering over for 8 seasons until landing again in Spokane. Claude and Catherine had spent their honeymoon at Beaver Creek in 1936 and returned there often until purchasing a lot and cabin in the Beaver Creek Camp Association in 1953. The whole family thinks of Priest Lake as our truest “home.” Over their years at Priest Lake Claude and Catherine opened their home and shared their love for the Lake with family and world-wide friends. Claude and Catherine assembled an oral history of the Priest Lake country and in 1981 published North of the Narrows: Men and Women of the Upper Priest Lake Country that continues to be a best seller around the Lake now in its 5th printing. With her love of books and learning, Catherine was a founder of the Priest Lake Library in 1974. The “Little Log Library” was built in 1934 as a 1-room school and is now on the National Historic Register and continues to serve the reading needs of the Priest Lake community.

Always up for the next great adventure, Claude and Catherine traveled extensively, often following their daughter Peggy and her Foreign Service husband, John Yates, to Africa, Turkey, India and the Philippines. They also traveled to China, Thailand, and Europe and returned to Australia, everywhere visiting family and the friends that they made all along the way. However, they were always glad to return to Beaver Creek and the life they lived in the North Idaho woods.

The family is eternally grateful that our Granny lived a full life and lived her last years with grace and dignity. She always expressed her gratitude for everything that was done for her in her waning years and left us feeling aggrieved but relieved that she was able to live her life as she had hoped among family, friends and those wonderful people at Hawthorne that cared for her. May you rest in peace, Granny. The Family suggests donations in her name to the Priest Lake Library or the Catherine Diener Simpson Endowed Fund for the One-Room Schoolhouse at Eastern Washington University.

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. -Eskimo Proverb