Catherine Victoria George, who died at age 92 Sunday, January 26, 2025, was born December 23, 1932, in Star City. She was the fourth child and third daughter of the late Salvatore Sellaro and his wife, Asunta Marie Fazio.
Her father, an immigrant from the town of San Giovanni in Fiore, Calabria, Italy, owned and ran a small grocery store. He had previously been a coal miner and railroad worker. Her mother worked in the grocery store and handled its inventory, purchasing, record keeping, and accounting.
Catherine and her siblings were brought up in a family business that served its customers through the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war era. As a child, Catherine and her mother would end each day by searching the till for additions to Catherine’s coin collection.
Catherine was educated in public schools in Morgantown and was a graduate of Morgantown High School. A gifted artist, she went on to study at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, taking courses in drawing and painting. She designed displays for the museum at what was then the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) using newly developed plastics in creating stylized images of trees and leaves.
Through mutual friends, she met Joseph M. George, a decorated World War II Army veteran, and the two were married May 31, 1954, in St. Theresa’s Church in Morgantown. They settled in the home they built on Princeton Avenue in the Suncrest section of town near the Star City border, where they lived for the entirety of their marriage of nearly 70 years.
Catherine and Joseph had five children – all boys-and imbued them with a love of learning. All went on to high academic achievements – four receiving graduate degrees from Oxford University, the fifth earning graduate degrees from both Harvard and Yale. Robert is a professor of philosophy of law at Princeton University. Leonard is a businessman in Morgantown. Kent, Keith, and Edward are attorneys in Charleston. Upon once commenting that it was easier to raise boys than girls, Catherine was asked: “But, Mrs. George, how would you know – you only had boys.” To which she unhesitatingly responded: “Oh, but I was a girl.”
Catherine and Joseph instilled in their sons the deep religious faith they shared. The family belonged to St. Mary’s parish in Star City, where Catherine herself had been baptized as an infant. She encouraged her boys to contribute their musical talents to the life of the parish as liturgical musicians (which they willingly did) and ordered them to volunteer to mow the church’s lawn (about which, though compliant, they were less enthusiastic).
Catherine was celebrated by family and friends for her talents in the kitchen. She specialized in preparing not only southern Italian meals, but also Middle Eastern dishes taught to her by her Syrian mother-in-law Susan George, whom she held in high esteem. Catherine conferred upon each of her daughters-in-law at their weddings a copy of her cooking “bible,” Helen Corey’s The Art of Syrian Cookery.
Like her husband, Catherine loved entertaining. The George home was always filled with relatives, friends, and new acquaintances. Catherine and Joseph especially enjoyed establishing what invariably became deep lifelong friendships with people from other lands who had come to Morgantown to study, teach, or conduct research at West Virginia University. The George Boys, as they were known, sometimes described their home as “the United
Nations.”
The George home was also filled with music. All the boys began with piano lessons and then added stringed instruments, especially the bluegrass instruments of guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and upright bass. Catherine and Joseph loved to sing. Urged on by Catherine, Joseph’s rich baritone voice was a feature at family
occasions.
Catherine adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and was always on call to provide babysitting and childcare, even if that meant a two-and-a- half-hour ride to Charleston or a seven-hour ride to Princeton, N.J.
Often grandchildren were deposited in Morgantown, where their grandmother taught them to make Italian pastries and other treats, and their grandfather and Uncle Lenny took them fishing. Catherine’s seemingly limitless supply of nursery rhymes, children’s songs, and games illumine the memories of all eight of her grandchildren.
A highlight of Catherine’s life was hosting the current Emperor of Japan, Naruhito, an Oxford friend of several of her sons, in her home in Morgantown. Catherine and Joseph were in turn hosted by his parents, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, DC during a state visit. Catherine and Joseph also entertained Charles Althorp, the 9th Earl of Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, at their home.
Catherine’s travels took her around the world, from Mexico, where she and Joseph honeymooned, to Europe, India, and the Levant. She was deeply affected by a religious pilgrimage she made to Lourdes with her mother. Many of her trips were to England and Italy. Wherever she traveled, her attention was drawn to art and architecture, and she was always on the lookout for recipes for the new dishes she tasted. Although many trips were taken with her children and grandchildren, it was common for Catherine and Joseph to travel just with friends of her children, who treated Mr. and Mrs. George as a second set of parents.
Catherine was predeceased by her parents and siblings, and by her husband, who died last March at age 98. She is survived by Robert and his wife, Cindy and their children, David (wife Saniya) and Rachel (husband Mark); Leonard and his wife, Rebecca; Kent and his wife, Georgette and their children, Alexandra (fiance West), Nicholas, and Francesca; Keith and his daughters, Hannah, Amanda, and Sarrah; and Edward and his wife, Andrea; and two great-grandchildren, Rayaan and Lily, plus one on the way.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Birthright of Morgantown, 11 Rousch Drive, Morgantown, WV 26501.
Hastings Funeral Home has been entrusted with arrangements and condolences may be made at www.hastingsfuneralhome.com.
