Catherine W. Green, retired longtime Philadelphia journalist, has died at 98

Catherine W. Green, 98, of Philadelphia, retired longtime reporter, copy editor, and freelance writer in Philadelphia, Virginia, and Bermuda, died Thursday, Aug. 17, of a stroke at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City.

A lifelong bibliophile who would hide in her room and read while her mother and younger siblings cleaned the house on Saturdays, Mrs. Green parlayed an abiding curiosity, a love of literature, and seemingly endless energy into a career as a reporter at the Philadelphia Bulletin and copy editor at The Inquirer, Philadelphia Business Journal, and Philadelphia Tribune.

She covered crime and City Hall for the Bulletin throughout the 1960s and was one of just a few women who worked for the male-dominated newspaper. She told her family stories of grumpy editors, colorful colleagues, newsroom high jinks, and a sense of camaraderie that fueled her ambition.

“She thrived in the fast-paced newsroom,” her family said in a tribute.

That she was a groundbreaking role model for women who followed her into the workplace didn’t come up in conversation much. “She didn’t talk about that,” said her daughter Nora Macaluso. “She just did it.”

Her daughter Jane Foran said: “She bucked the system.”

Mrs. Green interviewed the parents of a young murder victim in Philadelphia for the Bulletin and covered the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Bermuda when she worked for the bi-weekly Sun newspaper in Hamilton in the mid-1950s. She became a copy editor in the 1980s and worked at the Business Journal, The Inquirer, and later the Tribune.

She was a reporter for a few years in the early 1950s at the Roanoke Times in Virginia after college, spent a memorable year in sun-splashed Bermuda, and completed a decade on the Bulletin’s City Desk in 1969. She scaled back her sometimes-crazy schedule as she raised her three children in the 1970s and picked up writing and editing side jobs at United Way, the Baldwin School, and elsewhere.

She rode motorcycles on dates in Bermuda as a young woman and later invited fellow journalists to gather in her Center City home. Her daughters remember her editing their school reports even after their teachers gave them high grades.

She worked into her 90s and never really retired. Her curiosity also remained undiminished, and she interviewed practically every nurse and technician on recent visits to the hospital.

“She wanted to know about people,” Foran said. “She always tried to connect.”

Catherine Elizabeth Walsh was born Aug. 7, 1925, in Oyster Bay, N.Y. The oldest of seven children, she and her family moved to Gloucester County when she was young.

She graduated from Clayton High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Temple University. She had dreams of working as a foreign correspondent but met lawyer Lewis Green at an outing in Philadelphia, and they married in 1956.

They had daughters Nora and Jane, and son Charley, and lived in Center City. Her husband died in 2019.

Mrs. Green was an avid Phillies fans who could talk inside baseball with even the smartest of fans. She and her husband visited the local horse tracks often, and she later went to the gym and theater.

She was a lifetime member at the Franklin Institute, Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Philadelphia Zoo. She was active at her children’s schools, and Macaluso said: “She always seemed more beautiful and smart than the other mothers.”

She rode public transit to accompany her son to Little League baseball games and even kept score for the team. “I always think of her when I see someone in the stands keeping a book,” her son said.

Friends called her “Cat,” and she always had a cat nearby. When her children were young and she went to work, she’d place a lipstick kiss on a tissue and leave it for them to find.

She mastered computers and social media easily, and never stopped following current events. She liked to solve cryptograms and enjoy a martini before bedtime.

“She was so admired by her family for her attitude,” Foran said. Macaluso said: “She never talked about not doing things. She always said, ‘Why not?’”

In addition to her children, Mrs. Green is survived by four grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives. Four sisters and one brother died earlier.

Services are to be held later.

Donations in her name may be made to the Morris Animal Refuge, 1242 Lombard St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147.