Obituary of Catherine C. Troy

Catherine Colpe Troy passed away at St. Clare's Hospital on Oct. 14, 2014. She was 85. She was born and raised in New York City and moved with her parents, Charles and Hazel Colpe, to Denville Township in her teens, when her father embraced his love of nature and rural living and turned his mother's summer cottage (in what was then a woodsy wilderness) into a year-round home. Catherine graduated from the College of St. Elizabeth at age 20 with a major in chemistry, and began her career at Allied Chemical, which was unusual for a woman in that era. She married Donald Troy, and gave birth to daughter Elizabeth in 1954. She was a homemaker until returning to the workforce as a science teacher in the mid-1960s at St. Mary's School in Denville. After several years at St. Mary's, she moved to Copeland Middle School in Rockaway Township, N.J., where she was a science teacher until her retirement in the late 1980s. Her work was important and fulfilling to her, and over the years a number of former students contacted her to say she had been an inspiration for them to pursue careers in science or medicine, which she found very rewarding. Catherine moved to the Franciscan Oaks retirement community in Denville eight years ago, and embarked on a new chapter of life that included making more good friends and pursuing a hobby, painting, for which she always had much talent but had no time to pursue until she was freed from the responsibilities of caring for a large house. She is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth, of Pasadena, Calif. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the charity of your choice.