Catherine M. Harries

ASHLAND, Wis. - Catherine M. Harries, 92, of Ashland, passed away Thursday, April 23, 2015, at Memorial Medical Center in Ashland. She was born Jan. 27, 1923, in Ironwood, Mich., the daughter of Louis Wellington and Flora Curry (Snyder) VanSlyck.

In 1940, she graduated from Luther L Wright High School in Ironwood. As a teenager and young adult, she worked in her father's store VanSlyck Radio and Frigidaire in Ironwood. She and her father loved to take walks together. She also spent many happy times in the home of her maternal grandmother, Catherine Snyder, with whom she was very close.

Camp Galilee in Mellen held a special place in Catherine's heart, where she was a camper, counselor and camp director, and where she met her life-long friend Ruth Moon. During the winter months, she would bus from Ironwood to Mellen with her cross country skis. From there, she would ski to Lake Galilee and eat a pasty out on the frozen lake before skiing back to Mellen and catching the bus back to Ironwood. She also spent many happy times at Little Girl's Point in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where her family had a cabin on the shore of Lake Superior.

From the fall of 1940 until the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, she attended Gogebic Junior College. She married Frederick Carl Harries in January 1942.

Catherine remembered being at San Francisco Bay harbor after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She saw the huge fleet of ships in the bay preparing to go to the South Pacific, and remembered standing with the other military wives behind a fence until they convinced military police to let them sneak through to say good-bye to their husbands.

During World War II, Catherine volunteered for the Iron County Red Cross, knitting sweaters and caps for the soldiers and rolling bandages. She also volunteered as an airplane spotter at Black River Harbor, watching for enemy aircraft.

As a military spouse, she lived in many states, including Washington, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Arizona. She also recalled living in Selma, Ala., in the 1950s and refusing to sit in the front of the segregated buses, angering everyone by sitting in the back.

After Catherine and Fred divorced in the 1960s, she worked very hard as a single parent to support and raise their six children. She withheld no love from her children and supported them in every way. Catherine was also very involved in the Ashland area's Association for Retarded Children during its formation in the 1960s. In 1965, Catherine began working at Ashland County Social Services as a stenographer and terminal operator and worked there until her retirement in 1988.

Throughout her life, Catherine was active in the church. As a young adult, she worked in the Hurley Presbyterian Church office (Gogebic Parish), was a Girl Scout leader, and a vacation Bible school teacher. She taught Sunday school from the time she was 17 years old until she was 80, most recently at the Presbyterian-Congregational Church in Ashland, where she took special pride in presenting children with their first Bibles.

At the age of 80, Catherine returned to school to finish her college degree. She attended Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College in Ashland and received her Associate Degree in business from Gogebic Community College in 2004 when she was 81.

Catherine loved to ski (cross country and downhill), roller skate, ice skate, hike, canoe, swim, dance (especially the polka), and take photographs of nature. She created many home-made cards for family and friends. She crocheted over 80 snowflakes every Christmas, which she sent to her family and friends who enjoyed adding a new design to their Catherine Harries snowflake collection every year. Catherine also made thousands of her special sugar cookies, which she distributed to friends and neighbors every holiday season. She loved taking naps, especially if she could find a quiet place with a tree under which she could spread a blanket.

Catherine resided in Court Manor Nursing Home for the last three years of her life and greatly enjoyed visits from her family and friends, car rides, picnics and polka concerts sponsored by Faith in Action at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. She will be widely remembered for her generosity, compassion, kindness, delightful sense of humor and constant playfulness, as well as her leadership in her church and community.

She is survived by children, Linda (Rick) Kasprzak, Mexico, Janet (John) Murphy, Duluth, Minn., Thomas Harries, Hurley, David (Sue) Harries, Ashland, and Betsey (Robin Raplinger), Virginia, Minn .; a sister, Jane Kravetz, Houston; eight grandchildren, Darius Kasprzak, Alaska, Donald (Janie) Harries, Texas, Dee (Joel) Espurvoa, Texas, Jason Harries, Texas, Pazetta (Raymond) Reyes, Texas, Bryan (Elizabeth Sweetnam) Murphy, Tasmania, Kate (Ben) Doty, Wisconsin, and Marie (Erik Esala) Anderson, Minnesota; numerous great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren; the family in her heart includes Mary Verch of Ashland, and the late Ruth Moon of Ashland and Bayfield, both of whom she loved very much; and numerous nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents; a brother, William; a sister, Nancy; and a son, Donald Waid.

A funeral service will be held 11 a.m., Friday, May 1, 2015, at the Presbyterian-Congregational Church, in Ashland. Visitation will be held at the church from 9 a.m. until the hour of service. Inurnment will take place in the Mt. Hope Cemetery in Ashland.

In lieu of flowers, a memorial fund will be established to go toward several organizations to which Catherine was devoted.

To view this obituary online, sign the guestbook or express online condolences, visit bratleyfamilyfuneralhomes.com.

Arrangements are by Frost Home for Funerals and Ashland Crematory Service of Ashland.