Cathi Dwyer was a fighter – whether it was battling cancer or discussing politics.
Dwyer, 62, who died Monday at a hospice, had battled ovarian cancer for more than two years. But she continued teaching through the spring semester this year at Metropolitan State College. The term was interrupted by another surgery, but she managed to finish her work.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Horan and McConaty Funeral Home, East Mississippi Avenue and South Colorado Boulevard.
Dwyer had no use for hypochondriacs, said her daughter, Karen Kwon of Lakewood, and talked little about her illness.
“She treated it as a side issue,” Kwon said. “She woke up every morning with something she wanted to do,” whether it was wallpapering or playing with the grandkids.
Besides her family, she loved sweets, making pies and playing cards. “We have at least 15 pictures of her eating ice cream,” said Kwon, but she never seemed to gain weight.
Dwyer and a friend, Betty Fox, wrote a romance novel several years ago but never got it published. “We would meet at Perkins (restaurant), drink coffee and smoke cigarettes until our teeth were numb,” Fox said. “We had a good time.”
Fox said Dwyer had “a rock-solid sense of perspective and integrity. She never created drama. She just figured out what needed to be done and did it.”
She said Dwyer was still rearing children and helping out in her husband’s office while working on her bachelor’s degree.
“She was a tough lady,” said son Brian Dwyer of Denver.
He described her as a “bleeding-heart liberal,” very anti-war and a dedicated newspaper reader. When she got into arguments with non-Democrats, “she always tried to convince them they were wrong,” he said.
On the other hand, “you could never change her mind,” he said.
Dwyer was always interested in what her kids were doing, “but she never meddled,” said Kelly Pate Dwyer, her daughter-in-law. “She welcomed me into the family quickly and genuinely.”
Catherine Frances Loughry was born in Denver on Sept. 4, 1945, and graduated from Denver’s Bishop Mach ebeuf High School.
In 1965 she married Frank Dwyer, the guy across the alley. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and geography at Metropolitan State College and her master’s in urban planning at the University of Denver.
In addition to her husband, son and daughter, she is survived by another son, Tim Dwyer of Baltimore, and five grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
