Lydia Lewis Cate

Lydia departed this life at home, on February 7, 2025, after an extended bout with metastatic breast cancer. She died peacefully with her children and her husband, Walter, at her side. She maintained her cheerful demeanor to the very end with a determination to cherish every single day and share her love of life with all those around her. Her friends and family already miss her.

Optimistic and curious, she spent her life reading, taking vigorous walks twice a day with her cherished canine companions, tending her garden, celebrating the ephemeral flowers of the season, and talking about the movies and books she consumed relentlessly.   Her taste in music ran from the Bach to the Beatles, from the Traveling Wilburys to Bob Dylan and Doc Watson.  So what if she didn’t know the words? She joyfully warbled along anyway.  Whatever she was doing, she surrounded herself with an ever-present humming or whistling of her own tunes. One day, her daughter-in-law happened to see her pushing a grocery cart through the parking lot of Harris Teeter, humming happily all along. Lydia’s waste-not-want-not Pennsylvania Dutch heritage was both inspiring and amusing. Her resourcefulness and creativity with leftovers was legendary.

She loved yoga long before it became mainstream and never hesitated to break into a sun salute, whether at the beach or at her family’s cabin at Kerr Lake. Her grandchildren particularly loved having their grandma teaching them the cat pose and downward facing dog. Both friend and mother to her children, her true nature was perhaps best captured by her nine-year-old grandson: “She was really nice” he said.

She loved the water, being around it and in it, whether at the beach or at her home on Lake Barcroft, where she would sit in the living room, reading the Post and the Times while counting the eagles and ospreys.  She loved swimming and boating and especially kayaking. In the summer, she delighted in floating across the lake with her friends, all of them wearing huge hats. She was determined that neither age nor illness was going to curtail her summers or enjoyment of life and she could be seen swimming or kayaking with her oxygen supply.

Near the end of her battle, one of her doctors described her as “tough lady.” But everyone close to her also knew how gentle she could be.  She was strong, brave and resilient, especially as illness tried to slow her down, and she retained her unfailingly positive perspective on life, never complaining about the adversities she was experiencing.

Lydia was born Lydia Sadler Lewis to Margaret Seaks Lewis and Charles Pell Lewis, Jr., in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania  on October 29, 1945.  Later her parents and her twin brother, Charles, moved to Reidsville, N.C., where her father was an ear, eye, nose and throat physician.  She and Walter R. Cate were married August 7, 1976.

Lydia graduated Reidsville Senior High School in North Carolina and went on to Converse College, where she majored in European History.  She taught elementary school for a year, where she was known for impressing upon her students the importance of treating others kindly, no matter how different they were from you.  She then studied library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which led to positions in Wilson Library at the university, the American Gas Association where she also edited their Rate Service publication, and the Fairfax County Public Library.  When her husband was stationed at the consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, with the State Department, she served as the Community Liaison Officer and editor of the consulate newsletter, the Heute.

Lydia is survived her husband, Walter; her eldest son Cameron and his wife, Lauren, and their children Charles, Margaret and William; along with her younger son Charles “Casey” and his wife, Aleksandra, and daughter, Charlotte “Lottie”, all of Lake Barcroft in Falls Church, Virginia.  Other survivors include her brother Charles P. Lewis, III, who lives in Cary, N.C., his son Jeffrey Lewis in Chapel Hill, N.C.; her younger brother, George, and his daughters Eleanor and Clara in Concord, MA.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions, designated for the C.P. “Casey” Lewis Scholarship, may be made to the Rockingham Community College Foundation, P.O. Box 38, Wentworth, N.C. 27375.