Remembering Catherine (Kate) Ellen Greer Stradling Hall

Catherine Ellen Greer Stradling Hall

by her great granddaughter Shelbey Ballantyne Neil

Catherine Ellen Greer was born at Lyde Sanders’ home in Concho, Arizona, on 25 July 1899 and spent her childhood on Greer Ranch with her family of three sisters and two brothers. She was known as Kate among her siblings but went by Catherine as an adult. Her first schoolteacher was Luella Udall. Ms. Udall must have inspired her as a young girl because Kate followed in her footsteps and became a schoolteacher herself after graduating from St. Johns Stake Academy in 1920. She began her teaching career at a rural school in Salado (seven miles south of St. Johns) and later taught in Concho and other Apache County schools for a number of years.

When she was 22, she became enamored of a lifelong acquaintance, Alvin Levi Stradling, who had recently returned from serving in France during World War I. They were married in St. Johns on 19 April 1921. They were blessed with a son they named Darwin Greer Stradling, who tragically contracted pneumonia and died on 4 July 1923 at the age of eighteen months, just three months after the birth of their daughter Margaret in April of that year. Another son, Merwyn Gail Stradling, was born in 1927 and would later die at the tender age of five by drowning in a city canal in Phoenix. Whether their decaying relationship was a result of terrible misfortune or some other cause, Catherine and Alvin later divorced. Catherine moved to Phoenix and raised her daughter there.

Catherine & Roy Hall

Margaret married Thomas Marvin Ballantyne in December of 1945. A few months later, Catherine married Miner LeRoy “Roy” Hall (a native of Greer, Arizona) in Silver City, New Mexico, marking the beginning of a long life in that state. Her grandchildren remember her living in Red Hill, New Mexico, a remote area where she and Roy ran a general store, café, and gas station, and where Catherine was also the Postmistress. While living here, Catherine volunteered to drive to a neighboring ranch to deliver news of a plane accident. The roads were rough, she lost control of the car, and it rolled, causing her injuries so severe that her left leg had to be amputated.

Kate was close to all of her siblings. Her sister Flossie remembered her as “outstanding in her abilities as a homemaker, kind and cheerful under the most trying circumstances, thoughtful and considerate of the welfare of others, never complaining of physical discomfort or handicap. A keen student of human behavior and a good reader, Catherine was always alert to the events of the day.”

Her grandchildren remember fun times with their Grandma Catherine. Joe remembers once trying

to help her make a cake. He told her that all he really wanted to do was eat the batter. She smiled, removed the box of cake from the cabinet, whipped up the batter, and then handed the whole bowl to Joe to eat. “I thought that was great!” he says.

Grandma Kate’s thoughtfulness of others even made itself apparent to her young grandson. Joe says, “I remember walking around Greer with Grandma. I was amazed that every one seemed to know her. I remember walking down to the bridge in Greer and she and I fished for an afternoon. When I was a freshman at the U of A Grandma came to see me and we went to eat some pie at a pie shop.”

Following Roy’s death in 1964, Catherine moved to Holbrook, Arizona. She passed away there on 7 October 1970 of cancer.