Phoebe Elizabeth Catlin's Obituary
Phoebe Carter Beath Catlin died peacefully in her sleep Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at Westminster Palms in St. Petersburg, FL. She was a talented musician, an imaginative teacher, an organizer par excellence, a loving and supportive wife and mother, a generous helper, an animal lover, a liberal thinker, and a faithful church goer. She was frequently described as a “force of nature.” Phoebe was born in Borderland, WV, the only child of John Patton and Ethel (Olinger) Carter. After sixth grade, she grew up in Corbin, KY, where the love of music her mother had planted in her heart blossomed into a lifetime of playing piano and church organ, and directing choirs. In the midst of the Depression, she graduated from Sue Bennett College, Eastern Kentucky University, and summer programs at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Her teaching career took her from Kentucky two-room school houses to St. Mary’s College and, after WWII, to the D.C. public schools where she taught English and music. In the early 1950s, her life-long desire to help others led her to earn a Masters in Counseling at George Washington University. She put that degree to excellent use as a counselor in the D.C. schools. In 1947 she married Paul Robert Beath (PR), a lawyer and folklorist who grew up in Nebraska. In 1971, when Phoebe retired from Woodrow Wilson High School and PR from the Federal Trade Commission, they moved from Washington, DC to St. Petersburg, FL. In Florida, Phoebe returned to her first career and again became a church organist. She served in several churches in St. Petersburg until her second retirement in the late-1990s, after she had been organist at the Church of the Beatitudes for eight years. In 1983, two years after PR died, she married Glenn Catlin, a pastor. They shared the next twenty-five years in a happy, collaborative partnership that included music, church, writing, family gatherings, and time in nature. For the first three years of their marriage, Glenn (with Phoebe’s help) served as Pastor at Appanoose Presbyterian Church in Niota, IL. When they returned to Florida, they moved into Westminster Palms where they lived until Glenn’s death in 2008, and Phoebe’s death this year. Phoebe is survived by her daughter Mary Elizabeth Beath of Albuquerque, NM, her stepchildren Mark Catlin of Rochester, NY and Emily Gross of Chicago, IL, and her grandsons
Peter Catlin and Andrew Catlin. Phoebe has requested that memorial contributions in her name be made to the American Guild of Organists.
To make a gift, please send a check made out to “St. Petersburg AGO” at 140 4th Street N., St. Petersburg, FL 33701.
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