In Memoriam: Catherine Seaman, 1923-2013

Catherine Seaman, a professor emerita of anthropology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, died in late December. She was 90 years old and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

A native of Rockford, Virginia, Professor Seaman graduated from Bluefield College and received training at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. She began work as a nurse in New York City and took graduate courses at Columbia University. In 1945, she joined the U.S. Army Nursing Corps and was assigned to an Army facility in Virginia. There, she met her husband, a patient who had been wounded in the European theater.

After the war, Professor Seaman taught nursing at the University of Virginia and eventually earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the university. She joined the faculty at Sweet Briar College in 1967. Dr. Seaman retired from teaching in 1993 at the age of 70.