Catherine Nesbitt
Catherine Nesbitt
1933 - 28 Feb 2023
Clubs & Associations
Quick Facts
- Copy editor for The Call Sheet
Remembrances
I'm Catherine Nesbitt's daughter. Len Christiansen suggested that I send you some background info on my mother, Catherine Nesbitt. I have a few details that I thought of, but I'm not a writer so if there's points that would help what you write, please feel free to ask me.
Mum was born in Vancouver in 1933. She graduated with honours from Fairview Commercial High School and then went to secretarial college. After graduation she started working at the University of British Columbia and over her many years with UBC, she worked in a number of departments, until her retirement. When she retired, she had been employed at UBC for 42 years.
She married in 1953 and had me first and then my sister. Mum and my father divorced and while she was a single parent, she also worked at night, typing numerous book manuscripts for the author, George Woodcock.
In 1970 she married Clarence Nesbitt. They were married for 51 years when Clarence passed away December 26, 2021.
Both mum and Clarence were cremated and their ashes are spread in the same scattering garden in Olds, Alberta.
After retirement, Catherine and Clarence sold their home and moved to a condominium in New Westminster, BC. They bought a motor home and travelled across Canada, throughout British Columbia, and down to Mexico more than once. They had many happy years with the dance community in Canada and the United States.
I didn't do an obituary. Instead, memorial cards were published, a copy is attached.
Thank you for doing this. I know that it would mean a lot to my mum. — Catherine’s daughter
I met Cathie (who insisted on my using the shortened version of her name) when she was attending my marriage to Randy Hensley during the Squares Across the Border Anniversary Fly-In in November of 2003.
When I put out a general call for volunteers to help me proofread The Call Sheet for the GCA. Cathie was, at one stage of her UBC career, a professional proofreader of technical journals. Trust me, it showed in every issue of the Call Sheet that she reviewed. I had a team of five people (the “GCA Call Sheet Editorial Review Board”), plus myself, and still Cathie found errata that all of us had missed. Every. Single. Issue.
She also sent me notes about which articles worked well, and which ones didn’t, and we gossiped back and forth about some of the people and events discussed in each issue. And, typically for her, she held nothing back. I suspect I was one of her few outlets for blunt-spoken discussions, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
We had a cordial (actually, more familial) correspondence over many years, although we never had the chance to meet up in person again other than at a couple of Vancouver IAGSDC conventions. Cathie was both delightful, and, like Roald Dahl’s heroine Matilda, just a little bit naughty. (Actually, more than just a little bit; we had some delightfully unedited/unvarnished conversations about…certain topics.)
One issue of the Call Sheet, Cathie’s email with errata went astray into my spam filter, and I put out an issue without her edits. She was heartbroken, and a little mad, and I am forever grateful that we were good enough friends for her to actually tell me so. I immediately found her missing edits, retracted the just published issue from the website, applied her (many!) corrections, and republished the issue, along with apologizing to her profusely.
Cathie told me she loved dancing with Squares Across the Border, because they were “so much less fussy than the straight clubs”, and she had never seen a straight club allow a wedding ceremony during its fly-in, and that made her love SATB and the IAGSDC even more.
There are hundreds of Call Sheet readers who have no idea how much of a positive impact Cathie had on what they read, simply because she rejoiced in being an ally to the LGBTQ+ square dance community.
Frankly, I had a horrible time getting out the first issue of the GCA Call Sheet after Cathie’s passing. The rest of my Editorial Review Board stepped up and did a sterling job, but I kept weeping as I applied their edits, knowing I would never again process corrections from Cathie’s sharp mind and sparkling wit.
— Allan Hurst (7/31/23)
