Catherine Walton Whitten

Published 8:57 am Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Catherine Walton Whitten, loving wife and mother, passed away December 10, 2024, at the age of 89. Her funeral was held December 14 at Fourmile Baptist Church.

Born in Columbiana, Alabama, on June 22, 1935, to Gaston and Annice Walton, she used her golden voice to entertain and bless everyone within hearing. At 15 years old, she won $5.00 in a local contest for her rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Marriage to Grady Whitten in 1953 led her to seemingly half the small towns of Alabama, as the young couple followed his lineman’s job from place to place. When her oldest child was school-age, they settled permanently in the Shelby County community of Fourmile. There she sang in her church choir and eventually served as the director for sixteen years.

She is survived by three sons, Mike (Ann), Jerry (Terry), and John (Caroline), plus seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. She was a devoted wife, parent, and grandmother, who with her husband crisscrossed the continent visiting and caring for her grandbabies. She loved the far-flung places she and Grady visited, and those traveling adventures colored her stories until the last day of her life.