Catherine "Cathy" Jean Sherman Crick

A gathering of family and friends to celebrate the life of Catherine “Cathy” Jean Sherman Crick, 69, of Monroe, will be held from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, Tuesday, March 6, 2018 in the chapel of Mulhearn Funeral Home in Monroe, LA.

Catherine “Cathy” Jean Sherman Crick died peacefully at home in Monroe, LA, at age 69. The cause was brain cancer.
Born Catherine Jean Sherman in Dallas, TX on December 29, 1948, Cathy was the elder daughter of William “Bill” Earl Sherman and Burney “Pat” Marie Pruner Sherman. For about the first 14 years of her life, Cathy, along with her parents and her younger sister, Judith “Judi” Ann Sherman, led a somewhat vagabond life, moving frequently, often in the middle of the school year, between and among Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, as required by her father’s career in heavy equipment financing.

When Cathy was a freshman in high school, she and her family were finally able to set down some roots. That year they moved to Monroe and made it their permanent home. A few years later Cathy graduated from Neville High School and enrolled at Northeast Louisiana University (NLU). There, she studied Accounting and pledged Kappa Delta sorority. She was a cheerleader her freshman year, and a member of the Warbonnets dance team the next year. Cathy’s post-college plan was to be a successful Certified Public Accountant in a big firm, in a big city—far away from Monroe—with an active social and dating life, but decidedly single. She had no interest in marriage or motherhood.

In June 1967 Cathy met John Crick, a student at Louisiana Tech University, on a blind double-date. She thought he had movie-star good looks. But she also thought he was more interested in having fun than he was in planning for his future. For his part, John was impressed (and a little intimidated) by Cathy’s ambitious career plans, so much so that he waited a month to ask her out for a second date. She accepted.

By the end of the summer they were madly in love. Eventually Cathy transferred from NLU to Tech. John’s Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity brothers voted her their fraternity sweetheart.

In the spring of 1970 Cathy graduated from Tech with a B.S. in Accounting. That December she and John were married. Ten months later their first child was born: a daughter, Jennifer Layne Crick. Nearly four years later their family was completed with the birth of their son, John “Johnny” Sherman Crick.

Soon after Johnny’s birth Cathy realized that the job for which she was most immediately needed was the job of raising her two children. For 16 years, until both her children left home for college, Cathy made raising them her full-time career—one she approached with the same dedication, hard work, and exacting standards that she applied to any responsibility she undertook. This job had a single goal: to raise children who are self-sufficient. Or as Jennifer and Johnny described it: to raise children who are figure-it-outerers.

During those years, Cathy tackled a wide range of additional duties that not only helped reinforce her primary goal, but also satisfied her inextinguishable desire to work, to contribute, and to micromanage. She served innumerable terms on the PTA and as a Room Mother, when she planned classroom parties worthy of Martha Stewart’s approval (at one party for Valentine’s Day she sewed 30 denim goody bags with red felt heart appliqués and drawstring closures); she hosted piano recitals and high school sorority meetings attended by scores of screeching future debutantes; she served as a vigilant and slightly bossy lifeguard at countless swimming pool parties.

Cathy was a member of the Junior League of Monroe for many years. She served on the Cookbook Committee, which ran the business of publishing The Cotton Country Collection, including serving a one-year term as the committee’s Chairman. She threw herself into the job wholeheartedly and worked tirelessly—even putting her children to work gift-wrapping the cookbooks. For every 20 cookbooks they would wrap, she would give them a quarter to buy a Coke. When she and her family went to Disneyland that summer, she inspected every gift shop in the entire park to confirm not only that they had the cookbook on display, but also that it was displayed in a prominent place. At the end of her term, on her last day as Cookbook Committee Chairman, John and her children jumped up and down and cheered, “Mom’s back!”

Cathy had an extraordinarily green thumb, and gardening was one of her greatest passions. Of the many things she left behind when she passed away, one is a split-leaf philodendron that she received as a gift after the birth of her son, Johnny, who is now 42 years old.

When Cathy was 59, she became a grandmother for the first time. By the time she celebrated her 69th birthday last December, she had four granddaughters: Adyson (10), Remy (7), Lucy (6), and Devyn (2). To them, she was “Mimi.” During the last ten years she spent as much time as she possibly could with them. She also let them get away with a lot of things that she would never have let her own children get away with when they were younger: playing with glitter on the kitchen table, jumping on the furniture, having two desserts. Once Cathy’s daughter pointed that out to her. Cathy replied, “I’m a grandmother. I can do whatever I want.”

Cathy is survived by the love of her life, her husband of 47 years, John Crick, of Monroe, LA; her two children: Jennifer Smith and her husband Tim Smith, of Madison, CT; Johnny Crick and his wife Amy Crick, of Monroe, LA; four grandchildren: Adyson Crick, of Monroe, LA; Remy Crick, of Monroe, LA; Lucy Smith, of Madison, CT; and Devyn Crick, of Monroe, LA; her sister, Judi Nicholson, of Monroe, LA; and her nephew, Connor Nicholson and his wife Nikki Nicholson, of Augusta, GA.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Cathy’s memory can be made to The Cure Starts Now, 10280 Chester Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45215, 513-772-4888.

Online Registry/Condolences: www.mulhearnfuneralhome.com
Mulhearn Funeral Home
Sterlington Road
Monroe, LA