Thursday, October 1, 2026
A tight, bonded family needs a strong, loving person to provide grace and care to keep it together. In the Archipley family, that person was Cate Archipley.
Likewise, a successful enterprise needs a brave, focused person to lead the effort, to persevere through the ups and downs, and to wrap that strength with resolve. At Beacon Publishing, that person, again, was Cate.
The Beacon – and I – never would have gotten off the ground without her. Catherine Therese Archipley, my rock, love and partner for 54 years, left this world to go on to her next adventure on Thursday, Dec. 4. She was 75.
Cate came by her moxie through her Irish Catholic heritage. A Navy brat, she began her journey on May 19, 1950, in Philadelphia, Penn., the first of nine siblings born to Paul and Virginia Hanley. Throughout those first years, as the Hanley clan grew, her father’s military career meant regular moves with stops, sometimes repeated, that included Philadelphia, Chicago, Guam and Southern California.
Beginning in World War II and continuing through the Korean and Vietnam wars, Paul was often at sea, returning on leave to his growing family. Her mother complained to me once, only half kiddingly, that she was pregnant for 15 years straight.
Living in Navy housing and on a sailor’s pay ensured that the Hanleys would forge a tight family unit, united by love and faith as well as necessity. Cate attended Catholic schools where stern nuns instilled a love of learning, leavened by discipline. Those traits would serve her well when she grew up to become a teacher herself.
Cate and I met in Fullerton, Calif., where I grew up. We both attended California State University at Fullerton where she majored in English literature while I learned my craft in journalism. What started out as a friendship blossomed into love. We agreed that becoming friends first helped ensure our marriage was solid. Mostly. Friends heard me joke that our 54 years together included 52 wonderful ones and two crappy ones. But, in reality, the bad times were few and far between. We clicked.
Although we both began to flourish in our chosen careers – Cate was named Teacher of the Year in the Anaheim School District – our family wasn’t complete until our daughter Caitlin was born in 1986.
We visited friends in the Great Northwest over the years, and decided it would be an ideal place to settle before Caitlin began kindergarten. One of our friends recommended we look north of Seattle, and we bought our home in Mukilteo in 1991.
When we settled in, I looked around and noticed the only community paper was a monthly being produced by the manager of the old Rosehill School Community Center. I told him I was thinking of starting a weekly newspaper, and he was more than happy to get that job off his plate.
Crazy? Probably. But I was blessed with a spouse who supported and believed in me, and in the summer of 1992, using a spare room in our home, the two of us launched the Mukilteo Beacon. I was the newsroom and production departments; she handled business and sales. Before going into teaching, Cate had worked as a manager in retail, so she knew how to keep the books and sell the product. Without her, The Beacon would have folded its tent pretty quickly. A few years later, we bought the Edmonds Paper, and Beacon Publishing grew.
She joined the Mukilteo Business Association – the forerunner to the Chamber of Commerce – and soon became its president. Thanks to Cate, we began to make life-long friends.
Among them was the Rev. Bill Mobley, the priest at St. John Mission. Unlike Cate, I’m not Catholic, but Father Bill didn’t hold it against me. Not long after we started publishing and were living off credit cards, I ran into Father Bill. He asked me how we were doing. I couldn’t lie to a priest, and admitted we were barely hanging on. He said he would pray for us. I was grateful for the help.
I didn’t see him again for several months until we met in the street again, and he asked the same question. This time, I was happy to report, things were looking up; I was optimistic. He asked, “So I can stop praying for you now?” I was floored. He was just one example of the wonderful people who make Mukilteo special, and was among many friends we made, thanks to Cate.
After a couple of years and adding staff, Cate said she wanted to go back to her first love: teaching. So for the next 20 years she taught English and, of course, oversaw the student newspaper, the Highland Piper, at Shorecrest High School.
Cate loved being a teacher. She loved working with other educators, and many became lifelong friends. But she especially loved her students. Not surprisingly, many returned after they graduated to thank her for her mentorship and care for them.
She retired in 2016. Caitlin had started her own family, and we became proud grandparents of three wonderful grandchildren. Cate doted on them, of course, and we enjoyed weekly Sunday dinners at their house or ours, along with attendance at youth martial arts and ball games, school assemblies, birthday parties and other events.
Also during those years, Cate and I loved to travel, especially road trips and stays in Hawaii. Life was good. Even as her health began to decline over this past year, she stayed as active as she was able, tutoring the grandkids, cooking and baking for all of us, overseeing her Free Little Library, and loving us all.
Cate was preceded in death by her parents, Paul and Virginia Hanley, and a younger sister, Barbara. Besides me, she is survived by our daughter Caitlin and husband Will Olsen, grandchildren James Patrick, 10, Mason Paul, 6, and Liliana Rose, 2; as well as her siblings and their partners, Ginny (Phil) Tapia, Paul (Jackie) Hanley, Patty (Max) Hidalgo, Thomas (Linda) Hanley, Shaun (Laura Brewer) Hanley, Colleen Hanley, and Marie (Kenny White) Hanley, as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
A memorial service is planned after the holidays. Cate left her mark on The Beacon and in the thousands of kids she taught, and in the hearts of her many friends and family. It hurts like hell to say goodbye, and I look forward to the day I’ll see her again. As a friend reminded me, we’re all just walking each other home.
– Paul Archipley
