Catherine Duncan Felder of Huntsville passed away on October 15th 2026 after an active life as the centerpiece of her family. She was predeceased by her husband James Thomas Felder Junior and is survived by her loving family Ann Felder Robinson, Jill Felder Morton, Alan Felder and James Felder III.
Her family arrived in Birmingham in 1932, ten years after her birth in Atlanta. She was waiting for the bus to Woodlawn High School when she chanced to share an umbrella with a black-haired boy who happened to live just a block away. They married in 1946, just weeks after his return from the war in Europe. She served as a secretary for some of the most revered educators at the University of Alabama while her husband conducted his studies there, then move to Mobile where they began their family. Given the opportunity to move to Huntsville as it became the center of the Space Race in the 1950s, the couple built one of the earliest homes on a hill overlooking an empty, but soon-to-be-crowded, Jones Valley—the very house where she so recently breathed her last breath.
Catherine was an early member of Whitesburg Baptist Church; she was active in Huntsville’s new garden club; she was active in the PTAs of both Whitesburg Elementary and Whitesburg Junior High; she developed her artistic skills into an accomplished realist oil painter; she beautified the interior and lawn of her home through tireless work in between the naps of her young children and has maintained it to a high standard through the 59 years she lived there. She was an accomplished seamstress and a fastidious housekeeper. She continued to play bridge with many of the same Mobile neighbors who moved to Huntsville during the space race years, and her home was often the venue for bridge parties games attended by Huntsville luminaries of all backgrounds and interests.
She was beautiful. She possessed a polished tolerance for and patience with others and never uttered an unkind word about anyone she ever met. She was a great storyteller, a sharp wit and a practical thinker. As a mother and family leader she held a reputation for kindness, thoughtfulness, gentleness and resourcefulness that endured to her dying day. She brought her family into this world, instructed them well, and left them a reason to love it and they will never forget her for it.
She passed away living in the home she loved, surrounded by the people she loved, in the peace and dignity she had always dreamed of.
In addition to her four children, she is survived by ten grandchildren: Sunny Ange (Ed); Molly Felder (Thomas); Jenny Raburn (Tim); Julian Robinson; Elizabeth Peltier (Chad); Nolan Felder; Kate Cappelmann (Jade); James Felder; Melissa Hill (Jesse); Will Brobston (Genni) and six great-grandchildren. In her final days she was attended by family and Porshia Powell and her team; Gina Whorton; Henrietta Chukwuelue and Gloria Hayden and Hospice of Alabama.
Services for Mrs Felder will be held Monday, October 19th at Valhalla Memory Gardens In Huntsville Alabama. Visitation will be begin starting at 10:00 a.m. followed by a brief service and burial on the grounds at Valhalla at 11:00.
