Catherine Leland Shearer passed peacefully at her home in Rancho Mirage surrounded by three of her five daughters on Wednesday, October 12, 2016.
Cathie was born in October 1923 in Titonka, Iowa to Floyd and Clara Leland. She was graduated from University of Iowa in 1947, married Dr. Sherl K. Shearer the next day and moved to Southern California on a Greyhound bus the following week. There she worked at UCLA as secretary to the dean of women before starting her family.
Cathie and her husband raised their five daughters in Pacific Palisades and retired in Rancho Mirage in 2001.
She is survived by daughters Terri Bribiesca, Nancy Sterrett, Susan Bischoff, Peggy Rose and Julie Senaldi, as well as her 11 grandchildren: Kristin Kratochvil Quiros, Michael Bribiesca, Erika Bribiesca Brown and Alicia Bribiesca Lemon, Kyle and Cody Bischoff, Kayla, Natalie and Collin Rose, and Samantha and Alex Senaldi; and seven great-grandchildren.
“Mimi,” as her family called her, loved quail, hummingbirds, college football and professional basketball. She enjoyed dark chocolate See’s candies and the warmth of the desert. She was a stickler for correct grammar, loved to read and was a devout Catholic who regularly blessed her loved ones with “God bless you; I love you.”
A memorial Mass will be held at Sacred Heart Church, 43-775 Deep Canyon Road, Palm Desert, on Friday, November 4 at 3 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Eisenhower Medical Center, Attn: Foundation at 39000 Bob Hope Dr., Rancho Mirage, CA 92270; 760-773-1888. Please reference Catherine Shearer Memorial.
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