Catherine Grace Coughter Jackson, died on January 20, 2019 at her home in Longmeadow of natural causes. She was born in Springfield on January 17, 1921, a daughter of Peter R. and Grace Byrne Coughter. She grew up in Springfield and seasonally in her beloved Berkshire Mountain towns of Pittsfield, Lenox, and Lee. She was a graduate of Technical High School, and in retirement, attended college classes at the Learning in Later Life Program of Springfield College. As a young woman she worked in the offices of several Springfield industrial businesses including Pittsburg Plate Glass. For twenty-five years, she supervised and conducted the majority of banking activities of the Postal Workers Credit Union, which was to become The Pioneer Valley Credit Union. In 1958 she married Willard Dewhurst Jackson. They made their home in Springfield until his death in 1993. Every summer she visited Maine where she enjoyed the sea in the company of her sister, Jane Marie Coughter Corcoran. Mrs. Jackson was an active volunteer throughout her life. She served as a Gray Lady of the American Red Cross, visiting injured and disabled soldiers during and immediately after WWII, and later was a Hospice volunteer during the AIDS crisis of the 1980’s. A great lover of animals and beautiful places, she served at the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Laughing Brook Sanctuary. A niece Christine C. Cantwell of Portland, ME and nephew Peter Blaze Corcoran of Sanibel Island, FL survive her, as do two stepsons, Richard E. Jackson and his wife Judy of Naples, FL, and Stephen J. Jackson of Los Angeles, CA, two grandchildren, Christine von Nickel and Stephen R. Jackson, two great-grandchildren, and several great nieces and nephews. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on February 9, 2019 at 11:30 a.m. at St. Michael’s Church, 128 Maple Street, East Longmeadow. Burial will take place at St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Pittsfield at a later date.
"Though I never had the pleasure of meeting her in person, I feel as though I know her through the love of her step-son,..."