July, 2022: TY to FGraver Russ for the updated birth/death information for Cas - it is greatly appreciated!
Note: I am presently seeking photos and/or personal recollections of Catherine Salmi to add to her memorial page; please contact me through the Suggest an Edit feature on this page. TY.
Catherine Ann Salmi was the daughter of actress Peggy Ann Garner, whom as a child actress was awarded a special Academy Award for her work in the movie classic "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn'. Catherine's father was the character actor Albert Salmi, whose career is detailed on his own FAGrave page, as is Peggy's.
I stumbled across the information to place a page for Cas online somewhat by accident; a great fan of both of her parents, I had reviewed books recently written about both Albert and Peggy. Details of Catherine's life were plentiful in these books, and an editor suggested to me that Catherine would also be someone interesting to 'look up', and the suggestion did indeed take me down Cas' path.
Any fan of Albert and/or Peggy will already know that this entire family seemed star-crossed; Peggy died at age 52 of cancer, after years of emotional issues and alcohol addiction, and Albert would become the suicide in a murder/suicide in 1990, when he shot his second wife, Roberta and then himself. I actually found reading so much material about this one family, page right after page, not only heartbreaking but almost wrenching - I kept hoping for something to 'turn out right' for somebody, but it wasn't meant to be.
Catherine was no exception. Struggling from a young age with depression, alienation from her birth mother as well as her step-mother (books on the Salmi family provide many examples of possible abuse from Roberta toward Catherine) and drug abuse, Catherine became an unmarried mother at 16, gave the child up for adoption, married that child's father, left the child's father (there seems to be no proof of actual divorce anywhere), and 'disappeared' for many years, working low-paying jobs such as waitress, cashier, etc.
While Catherine is remembered as having loved her father Albert deeply - and he, her - they were kept apart by the dysfunctional relationship with Roberta; the only family member that Cas' seemed to truly keep in touch with throughout her brief life was Peggy's mother, Virginia Garner Swainston. While this love seems to have been returned just as deeply, there are few records of Catherine's times with Virginia, as Ms. Swainston's personal effects, letters, diaries and photos seem to have been lost.
I have had difficulty finding anybody willing to talk on the record about Catherine, and as having lost immediate members of my own family to drug and alcohol abuse, I think that I know why, if I may offer a thought: It is not that people are embarrassed to have known Catherine, but to identify themselves might verify their own struggles. I have had many, many people tell me about my father, for instance, that he was the best friend a person could hope for, funny, hard working - but then they ask that I don't identify them...it is much like the 'I don't want to be known to hang around folks with the issues (your dad) had." I think that this is what I am running into with Cas, as - off the record -, she is noted to be kind, generous, sweet, loving...she simply had addictions that she could not beat.
I have also had difficulty verifying her geographical location the last years of her life, should anybody be willing to share that information.
Catherine found true love in the last years of her life with a man named John (last name withheld pending permission to include); John, by all recollections loved Cas in return, and remained with her as she struggled with cirrhosis of the liver, depression and verified suicide attempts. This gentleman would himself die less than two years after Catherine, and although he was stated to have died from a heart attack, friends say that the medical notation is incorrect.
"He loved Cas so much," said a close friend; "that he died of a broken heart."
Catherine died on May 17, 1995; she left behind John and a young son whom, again, I am not naming until I have permission to do so.
Virginia Garner Swainston, having outlived both her daughter Peggy and granddaughter Catherine, died on November 5, 1995.
July, 2022: TY to FGraver Russ for the updated birth/death information for Cas - it is greatly appreciated!
Note: I am presently seeking photos and/or personal recollections of Catherine Salmi to add to her memorial page; please contact me through the Suggest an Edit feature on this page. TY.
Catherine Ann Salmi was the daughter of actress Peggy Ann Garner, whom as a child actress was awarded a special Academy Award for her work in the movie classic "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn'. Catherine's father was the character actor Albert Salmi, whose career is detailed on his own FAGrave page, as is Peggy's.
I stumbled across the information to place a page for Cas online somewhat by accident; a great fan of both of her parents, I had reviewed books recently written about both Albert and Peggy. Details of Catherine's life were plentiful in these books, and an editor suggested to me that Catherine would also be someone interesting to 'look up', and the suggestion did indeed take me down Cas' path.
Any fan of Albert and/or Peggy will already know that this entire family seemed star-crossed; Peggy died at age 52 of cancer, after years of emotional issues and alcohol addiction, and Albert would become the suicide in a murder/suicide in 1990, when he shot his second wife, Roberta and then himself. I actually found reading so much material about this one family, page right after page, not only heartbreaking but almost wrenching - I kept hoping for something to 'turn out right' for somebody, but it wasn't meant to be.
Catherine was no exception. Struggling from a young age with depression, alienation from her birth mother as well as her step-mother (books on the Salmi family provide many examples of possible abuse from Roberta toward Catherine) and drug abuse, Catherine became an unmarried mother at 16, gave the child up for adoption, married that child's father, left the child's father (there seems to be no proof of actual divorce anywhere), and 'disappeared' for many years, working low-paying jobs such as waitress, cashier, etc.
While Catherine is remembered as having loved her father Albert deeply - and he, her - they were kept apart by the dysfunctional relationship with Roberta; the only family member that Cas' seemed to truly keep in touch with throughout her brief life was Peggy's mother, Virginia Garner Swainston. While this love seems to have been returned just as deeply, there are few records of Catherine's times with Virginia, as Ms. Swainston's personal effects, letters, diaries and photos seem to have been lost.
I have had difficulty finding anybody willing to talk on the record about Catherine, and as having lost immediate members of my own family to drug and alcohol abuse, I think that I know why, if I may offer a thought: It is not that people are embarrassed to have known Catherine, but to identify themselves might verify their own struggles. I have had many, many people tell me about my father, for instance, that he was the best friend a person could hope for, funny, hard working - but then they ask that I don't identify them...it is much like the 'I don't want to be known to hang around folks with the issues (your dad) had." I think that this is what I am running into with Cas, as - off the record -, she is noted to be kind, generous, sweet, loving...she simply had addictions that she could not beat.
I have also had difficulty verifying her geographical location the last years of her life, should anybody be willing to share that information.
Catherine found true love in the last years of her life with a man named John (last name withheld pending permission to include); John, by all recollections loved Cas in return, and remained with her as she struggled with cirrhosis of the liver, depression and verified suicide attempts. This gentleman would himself die less than two years after Catherine, and although he was stated to have died from a heart attack, friends say that the medical notation is incorrect.
"He loved Cas so much," said a close friend; "that he died of a broken heart."
Catherine died on May 17, 1995; she left behind John and a young son whom, again, I am not naming until I have permission to do so.
Virginia Garner Swainston, having outlived both her daughter Peggy and granddaughter Catherine, died on November 5, 1995.
