Catherine Blackburn

Catherine J. Blackburn, longtime resident of Pearl River, New York, died of natural causes on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024 at her home in that community.  She was 87 years old. 

Having immigrated to the United States after her high school years, Mrs. Blackburn spent most of her adult life as a homemaker, but also worked continuously as a crossing guard for the Town of Orangetown in Pearl River from 1987 through 2012. 

Mrs. Blackburn was born October 14th, 1936, in Tobercurry, Ireland to James and Kate (née Henry) O’Rorke.  There she was educated and graduated high school in 1954.

On June 19th, 1965, she married Lonnie (Paul) Blackburn at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in the Bronx, New York.

Mrs. Blackburn lived in Pearl River for the past 55 years.  Before that, she lived in Nyack, New York from 1965 to 1969, and in the Bronx, New York from 1959 to 1965.

Locally, she was a steadfast and active parishioner at Saint Margaret of Antioch for the entirety of her residency in Pearl River, and stood the same crossing guard post at Saint Margaret’s School for her whole career in that role.

Mrs. Blackburn will be remembered for too many remarkable qualities to be documented sufficiently in this space.  At our heartbreaking loss, Heaven has gained the most loving and devoted wife and mother with which any family could wish to be blessed.  With unswerving faith in God and full dedication to her traditional Catholic catechism, she never viewed her own personal wants or well-being as comparable to the health, welfare, and happiness of her family and others in need.  Rather, sacrifice was second-nature to her; in more ways than can be recalled or recounted, she worked tirelessly in and out of her home, often in times of personal suffering through illness or other adversity, to provide a singularly stable, morally and religiously upright, academically enlightened, meticulously tidy, and otherwise salubrious environment for her husband, her son, and all others within her wide circle of positive influence.  Through it all, she repeatedly proved herself to be an infallibly wise teacher, an intuitive, caring, and nurturing nurse to the sick, and the family’s cleverest engineer and problem-solver, as well as being amiable, outgoing, gregarious, and sociable, to the degree that everyone who knew her found her a joy and a comfort to be around.  Our world is poorer in spirit today in the sudden and sorrowful absence of a truly good woman.

Mrs. Blackburn is survived by her husband of 59 years, Lonnie (Paul) Blackburn of Pearl River, her son and daughter-in-law, William P. and Aijing Blackburn, of Annandale, New Jersey, her grand-daughter Dr. Amy Z. Blackburn, of Los Angeles, California, and her sister and brother-in-law, Mary (Mona) and James Conlon, of Plainview, New York.

Family members who died earlier include her beloved brother, Charles H. O’Rorke (d. 1996).

Viewing hours are 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm EDT, Wednesday, September 25th, at Wyman-Fisher Funeral Home, Pearl River, New York. 

The funeral Mass will take place at 11:00 am EDT, Thursday, September 26th, at Saint Margaret of Antioch R. C. Church, Pearl River, New York.

Friends may send memorial donations to:

United Hospice

11 Stokum Lane

New City, New York  10956

(845) 634-4974

Online donations accepted through https://unitedhospiceinc.org/giving/general-memorial-donation

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