Cate Windelborn

1968 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

MONROE - Cate Windelborn, a musician and Monroe High School music teacher, who guided students in the art of choral singing as she led vocal groups at the school and her church, died Saturday in ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital. She was 54.

The cause was a pulmonary embolism, and she'd suffered no apparent symptoms, her brother Bud Windelborn said. Help was summoned and she was taken to the hospital after a passerby noticed she'd become unresponsive in her car in a restaurant parking lot.

The evening before, she'd directed a Monroe High choir, Generations of Sound, in the national anthem at the pep rally for homecoming. She'd been at the school for more than 17 years and, before that, taught in the Oscoda school district of northeastern Lower Michigan.

"Her whole life was teaching," Mr. Windelborn said.

Monroe High posted on social media earlier this week: "This year was Cate's 28th year of teaching and she taught both choir and piano at MHS. Cate will be remembered not only as an outstanding choir director, but also as a wonderful teacher, an amazing staff member, and a loyal friend."

Scores of condolences and remembrances from students, their parents, and colleagues followed.

"Cate was definitely a person who made a lot of time for everybody, for every student," Joey Swinkey, Monroe High's director of bands said Wednesday in an interview. "Any student who ever had her and every colleague who ever worked with her would say they felt she knew them."

During any given school year, she directed at least three choirs - sometimes as many as six - including select ensembles of 15-18 voices and groups of 60.

"Kids really trusted her. She was very much a choir mom. She looked after them like they were her own. That inspired a lot of loyalty and bravery in her students," Mr. Swinkey said.

She was on Mr. Swinkey's interview panel in 2018 when he'd applied to become bands director.

"I was a brand new teacher, and she really took me under her wing and helped me personally and professionally," Mr. Swinkey said. "We're all better for having known her."

She could be no-nonsense and had succinct rules of deportment, her brother said. No.1 being: "Don't be a jerk."

"She brought it up a lot, especially at the beginning of school years," Mr. Windelborn said.

Foremost, she created a community at Monroe High School, said Joseph Daniel, a close friend whom she met more than a decade ago at a school choral festival held at her alma mater, Central Michigan University,.

"It was a community where everyone was welcome," said Mr. Daniel, who when they met taught music and conducted choirs at Washtenaw Community College. "It was not a program built on elitism.

"Her No. 1 teaching philosophy was kindness," he said.

She was a follower of musical theater and enjoyed classics by Rodgers and Hammerstein and such contemporary musicals as Hamilton and Six. She took a group of students to New York City every other year to attend Broadway shows.

Ms. Windelborn also directed the choir at Christ Lutheran Church in Monroe and was a vocal soloist who performed at weddings, funerals, and other occasions. She played viola and performed in pit orchestras across southeast Michigan, including at Croswell Opera House in Adrian. She was a longstanding member of a string quartet that got together after school at Monroe High and "would play for the sake of playing," Mr. Daniel said.

Away from the classroom or practice room, church or theater, "she was a very private and even-keeled person," Mr. Windelborn said. "She wasn't comfortable with the spotlight."

She and Mr. Daniel found they were kindred spirits, he said.

"We were both introverts whose careers forced us to be extroverts," Mr. Daniel said. "We appreciated the ability to be in the same room with each other and just be."

She showed her sharp sense of humor in small-group settings.

"She loved puns and witty humor, a turn of phrase," she said. "It was sophisticated humor and very dry."

Catheryn Windelborn was born Nov. 20, 1968, in Sycamore, Ill., to Martha and William Windelborn. Her mother had been active in theater and the folk music scene, and singing often filled the household.

When Ms. Windelborn started taking viola lessons in grade school, "she realized how great she was," her brother said. "She was a natural at reading music."

She later took voice lessons and, in the course of her career, learned to play just about every instrument in the orchestra.

She was a graduate of Sycamore High School and attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Central Michigan, from which she received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in choral conducting.

Surviving are her mother, Martha Windelborn, and brothers Bud Windelborn, Jim Windelborn, and Tom Windelborn.

Visitation will be from 3-8 p.m. Friday at Rupp Funeral Home, Monroe. Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Monroe Middle School auditorium, with visitation after 10 a.m. A memorial service will be held later.

The family suggests tributes to the newly formed Cate Windelborn Memorial Scholarship at Monroe High School.