On Tuesday, December 6, 2022, Katherine Anne Hyde (née Cordingley) passed away at age 66.
Katie loved and participated in her community in many different roles, particularly the Co-op movement and opportunities for children. She also loved and supported her husband Stan, and four children Sara, Owen, Siobhan, and Nate.
Katie studied animal science at U.B.C., but her focus in life became creating a kinder and more caring society. She worked for many years as Children’s Religious Education Co-ordinator at the Unitarian Church, was a member of the Stanley Park Task Force, and was active and helped organize many different forms of co-operatives - from baby-sitting co-ops to housing co-ops. She also cared for and encouraged her family to think of others as well as themselves when it came to making choices in life.
Katie was a reader with a particular fondness for mysteries, but she read many other genres as well. In terms of non-fiction, she was fond of biographies and humorists like David Sedaris. Being married to Stan, she was introduced early to Science Fiction conventions. Stan and Katie spent their honeymoon at a Science Fiction convention, and over the years she helped out with those events, from local conventions to World Science Fiction Conventions, and In particular G-Fest, a convention devoted to Godzilla and Japanese science fiction films that Stan helped organize in Chicago, and where she sometimes helped with children’s programming.
In this, like so much else, she was very supportive and encouraging of people’s interests whether it was her husband, her own children or children in the other communities and associations she was a part of.
Katie loved movies of every kind. Her special loves were 'Riff Trax' and ‘Mystery Science Theatre 3000,' in which comedians told (mostly affectionate) jokes about the films while screening older b-movies. She loved to laugh.
With Stan (who teaches film) she spent many hours watching films of every genre, from the classics to the monster movies Stan loved. Some of her favourites included “Harold and Maude,” “Cabaret,” and “Ikiru,” but she was also happy to watch “Godzilla vs the Smog Monster,” or “House of Dracula” with Stan. From ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space,” to “Lawrence of Arabia,” her affection for cinematic storytelling was wide-ranging and eclectic.
Katie also loved to travel. When the family was young, all six family members piled into the family van and drove to Chicago, Hollywood, Disneyland, Winnipeg, and many other places - usually camping along the way. Later she travelled often with Stan, but usually by air not van - although they occasionally did driving trips to San Francisco, Las Vegas, and even Chicago in 2014.
Chicago was a frequent destination because the Godzilla convention was held there each year for 27 years, and Japan was also a frequent destination for similar reasons, but Katie’s special favourite spot was Big Island, Hawaii. She loved the people there and the natural environment. Once she swam with Manta Rays at night, and she loved visiting the rain forest and Kilauea volcano in Volcano National Park. She also visited the active volcano Mount Aso in Japan. For Katie, travel was an adventure.
Her favourite cites, besides her home in Vancouver, and Victoria where she grew up, were Kyoto, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, and Portland. Although she professed to not really like big cities like Tokyo, she became fond of New York on a trip there and loved Chicago - particularly the Art Institute.
Katie also loved being a grandmother and had special affection for her two grandchildren Leif and Dasha. She had an almost supernatural ability to predict what toys and books would be hits: a dollhouse, a book with fabulous pictures of a monkey running atop vehicles, the board game Mouse Trap. She found the gifts that would become her grandchildren’s treasures. When Leif was young, she spent many hours with him, going for walks with him at the beach and to parks, particularly the Reifel Bird Sanctuary.
Stan and Katie were married for 43 years, and knew each other much longer. Her smile and energy and caring will be especially missed by him and by children Sara, Owen, Siobhan, and Nate, as well as her grandchildren Leif and Dasha. Katie is also survived by her sisters Kimberley and Colleen, and brother Kevin.
A celebration of Katie’s life will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, February 18th at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver at 949 West 48th Ave. (49th and Oak). In lieu of giving flowers, the family would like to ask that those who are able instead make a donation to either the Vancouver Public Library Foundation or the Canadian Kidney Foundation.