- Date Of Birth: January 22, 1947
- Date Of Death: December 21, 2022
- State: North Carolina
It is with loving hearts that the family of Katherine P. Causby announces her peaceful death on Wednesday, December 21st, 2022, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A native North Carolinian, Katherine had returned to her beloved home state after many years living in Virginia and abroad to be near family as she dealt with Alzheimer’s disease.
The youngest child of W.K. Phillips, Jr. and Inez Murrell Phillips, Katherine was born January 22, 1947. She grew up in the towns of Henderson and Winston-Salem before leaving home for college and a life full of adventure. Soon after her graduation from Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia with a BA in mathematics, she worked as an engineering associate with the Western Electric Company in Atlanta. The next year she married history teacher, Joseph Causby, also of Winston-Salem, NC and moved to Taiwan. She earned her math teaching accreditation and began her teaching career at the Taipei American School. While in Taipei she also earned a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Southern California. For the next 16 years she taught at international schools in Iran, the Soviet Union, and Saudi Arabia. She then continued her long teaching career with 20 years of service at Thomas E. Edison High School in Alexandria, Virginia, retiring in 2008.
Katherine’s adventurous spirit was reflected in her love of travel and new experiences. In addition to her work abroad she traveled to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Malaysia, Africa, Greece and other parts of Europe, Mexico, and many parts of the United States.
Throughout her life, Katherine was a positive, generous, and kind sister, daughter, aunt, and friend. She hosted her family for fantastic beach vacations at Cherry Grove, South Carolina for many years and later, at Little River, South Carolina. Katherine enjoyed reunions with cherished college suitemates, forged lifelong friendships while working overseas and as a retiree at Lake of the Woods near Fredericksburg, Virginia. She enjoyed all sorts of outdoor athletic endeavors, especially tennis, and loved to laugh, dance, sing, play games, and spend time with friends, family, and her much-loved cats, Shana and Zane.
She is survived by her older sisters, Elizabeth Hillman and Martha Green and her husband, David Green; a nephew, David Hillman and his wife, Toni Hillman, nieces Virginia Green and her husband, Oleg Ivanov, Anne Stephens and her husband, John Stephens, and Laura Green; four grandnieces and three grandnephews; two great-grandnieces and a great-grandnephew; and first cousins Jim Murrell, Elaine Phillips Sutton, Susan Phillips and Haywood Phillips, Jr. She is pre-deceased by her nephew, John Hillman. She was beloved and will be dearly missed.
