Catherine J. Whitaker

Catherine J. Whitaker: A Life of Family, Food, and Flowers
Catherine Whitaker (née Johnson) entered into eternal grace on the morning of Saturday, July 19, 2025, after a short illness.
On February 25, 1957, Catherine-known as "Cat" to family and friends-was born to Ernest Simmon and Nellie Mae Johnson in Florence, South Carolina, where she grew up with her two sisters, Susan "Susie" Johnson and Sylvia "DaDa" Johnson. In the late '80s, the sisters and their mother ultimately settled in Bridgeport, CT.
In 1989, Cat met Paul Whitaker while he was visiting his twin brother, Armstead "Sonny" Whitaker, on Bridgeport's East End.
"She was real nice, dressed good, looked good," said Paul. After dating for a while, Sonny became ill, and Paul moved him into his home until Sonny passed away in 1991. Paul recalls Cat told him, "I like what you did with your brother," because for Cat, family was everything.
"You couldn't come between them," said Paul of Cat, her mother, and her sisters. "They were so close."
Cat loved being an auntie and second mom to her nieces and nephews: Stephanie, Antonio (who everyone calls Tubbs), Whitney, and Dominice. Cat and Paul opened their home to them through the years, and when Susie died in 2008, Cat obtained custody of Dominice, who lived with her and Paul for 15 years. Cat was a role model for all her family, including great-nieces and nephews, whom she often babysat.
"She ain't never take no sh\*t," Paul said. "She told them what she wanted them to know, and if they didn't like it, she'd say, 'You don't have to come here.'"
"She told you what to do, how to do it, and when to do it," said Whitney.
And it didn't matter who you were.
"She would get up in my face anytime," Paul said. "I don't blame her."
In the early '90s, Cat began working at ABCD, where she became an executive receptionist who wore many hats. She worked in facilities management and dispatched maintenance crews to job sites before going upstairs to operate the switchboard. She handled outgoing and incoming mail for executives. Before there was a security guard at ABCD's main location on Park Avenue, there was Cat-buzzing in visitors and telling employees, "Let me see your badge."
Cat took many photos from behind the desk at ABCD, and she was always smiling.
"If the workday was messed up, she didn't show it," said Dominice. And he would know-when he was little, Cat put him to work for seven summer breaks, teaching him how to answer the phones and handle other tasks.
Due to health issues, Cat left ABCD in 2005, but she kept busy. She enjoyed eating out. She loved Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse-and was known to put a good steak knife in her pocketbook.
"This knife cuts like butter. This is an inch-and-a-quarter steak, and it cuts right through it," she'd say.
While Cat enjoyed restaurants, everyone enjoyed her food. Potato salad, mac and cheese, barbecue ribs, and banana pudding top the list of Cat's classics.
Cat loved being a homemaker and a host. She'd redecorate often-paint, curtains, furniture, rugs. She also doted on Paul, whom she married on August 9, 2003.
"She would go out shopping and come back with nice shirts and socks," Paul said. "She always surprised me with something."
On Friday evenings and weekends, coworkers, family, and friends showed up for get-togethers, game nights, and birthday parties.
Recently, Cat remembered one birthday party when a young Dominice stuck his finger in her cake. He can't deny it; someone snapped a photo just as he was about to do it.
Cat was "always ready to dance," said Tubbs, and many family videos show her dancing in their kitchen. She loved playing cards, darts, and of course, bingo-which she took very seriously.
One recent bingo night, Whitney tapped out. "I didn't want to play anymore," she said. "She was getting so aggressive."
Cat also loved animals (and often fed or took in many of the neighborhood cats), and enjoyed scary movies, the Animal Channel, and the Discovery Channel. She never missed *General Hospital*, *The Walking Dead*, or *Naked and Afraid*.
A self-described tomboy, she grew up driving trucks and loved the truck she and Paul shared. "I can drive that sucker, too," she said.
Whitney agrees: "All gas and no brakes."
But of all her hobbies, Cat was happiest in her garden.
"She's crazy about her flowers," Paul said. She'd spend at least an hour watering her garden of many flowers, but her favorites were Elephant Ears, Tiger Lillies, and sunflowers. She had a raised garden and birdhouse in their backyard patio, and she also kept flowers in the front yard. In the last week of her life, she'd told Tubbs to go water her garden, as he always did and Paul remembers she warned him not to get weed killer on her flowers.
Cat is predeceased by her parents, Ernest Simmon and Nellie Mae Johnson, and her two sisters, Susan "Susie" Johnson and Sylvia "DaDa" Johnson.
She leaves to cherish her memory: her partner of 37 years and husband, Paul Whitaker; nephews Antonio "Tubbs" Johnson (son of Sylvia) and Dominice Johnson (son of Susan) and his partner Luz Cortes; nieces Stephanie and Whitney Johnson (daughters of Sylvia); five great-nephews: Elijah and Josiah (sons of Whitney), Cameran and Taylor (sons of Tubbs), and Castiel (son of Dominice); four great-nieces: Nysheara (daughter of Stephanie), Skylar, and twins Wynter and Stormy (daughters of Tubbs); and three stepchildren: Tonya, Darren, and Nicole Whitaker.
The memorial service will be on Saturday, **August 9, 2025**, at 10:00 AM EST at Baker-Isaac Funeral Services, 985 Stratford Ave., Bridgeport, CT 06607. The service will be live streamed at Link above.
After the service, burial will follow at Park Cemetery in Bridgeport.