Joanne Cate Obituary

Joanne Swirat Cate of Black Mountain, North Carolina, passed away on Monday, August 18th, 2025, after a long fight against serious illnesses. She was born in Utica, New York, in 1940 and was the beloved wife of Dudley M. Cate.

Her life was a life of love. She loved her father and mother, Ben John Swirat and Irene Ostrowski Swirat, and helped care for them as they grew older. She also had strong affection for several of her many aunts and uncles. She dearly loved her brother Ted Swirat and her sister Diane Puccia.

Most of all she loved her children, Andrew, Lauren and Russell. Her nurturing of them extended through college and well beyond. Just as much, she loved her grandchildren, Emma, Julia, Meg and Patrick, the children of Lauren and Dr. Thomas McGahan. And she loved all the many nephews, nieces and cousins with whom she was blessed.

Joanne's education included undergraduate years that led to a BS in Nursing at Russell Sage College and a Masters Degree in Psychiatric Nursing earned at the University of Maryland. She worked at several public health agencies, and, at the last one, co-founded a program to provide seniors with physical, mental and emotional care in their own homes. Her skills combined with her love for children led her to volunteer to serve Buncombe County by providing, as a guardian ad litem, legal assistance to young people who lacked private legal representation for cases involving parents and other family members.

Joanne was proud of her Polish heritage. She loved Polish food and became quite good at cooking Polish dishes. She loved Polish music and dancing the polka. She enjoyed teaching non-Poles in the family about Polish words, traditions and practices.

Joanne and Dudley loved bird-watching together. They took classes and traveled to numerous popular bird-watching locations. They moved to Asheville in 2000 and loved viewing the beautiful mountains of the Southern Appalachians. They also loved viewing together the beautiful cloud formations that often formed over those mountains. The patio at their home at Givens Highland Farms provided superb views of magnificent displays of those clouds. Jo even joined "The Cloud Appreciation Society."

Jo and Dud also were fortunate to be able to make numerous trips to locations and for group tours in the United States, Canada and Europe. Those trips were wonderful and rewarding in many, many ways.

Through her many years, Joanne developed a large number of friendships. As with all good friendships, those included mutual storytelling, sharing of experiences, exchange of tips for baby- and child-rearing, gardening ideas, etc. - and laughter. Over the years she gained the reputation for having a sharp, incisive and sometimes even sarcastic sense of humor.

A celebration of life service for Joanne will be held Sunday, August 31, 2025, at 3 pm at St. James Episcopal Church in Black Mountain. A reception at the church will immediately follow.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be donated to the Black Mountain Home for Children (blackmountainhome.org) or to any charity of your choice that is believed to be consistent with Joanne's values.