Camille C. Cash was a sympathetic soul, a devoted counselor who found her calling in life by helping others through their most difficult times.
“She could read people without them having to say a word,” said her daughter, Courtney Courie, of Peters. “My mom was the perfect combination of strength and empathy. She cared about people and made an impact on many lives.”
Mrs. Cash worked for decades in the mental health field, serving as a case manager, a Duquesne University counseling professor and operating her own practice in the South Hills for more than 40 years.
Mrs. Cash, 77, of Mt. Lebanon, died July 29, nearly five years after being diagnosed with ALS.
She grew up in Wills Point, Texas, and never lost her charming Southern drawl, Mrs. Courie said.
“Her Texas accent was very endearing,” she said. “Everybody just liked her the minute they met her.”
An avid painter and sculptor, Mrs. Cash earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the University of Texas in 1963 before moving her young family to Mt. Lebanon in the early 1970s.
She pursued a master’s degree in counselor education from Duquesne, graduating in 1975, before beginning work as a case manager at Chartiers Mental Health in Bridgeville.
From 1979 to 1985, Mrs. Cash served as a residential unit manager and assistant facility director at what was then Western Center in Cecil.
Afterward, she moved on to Duquesne, where she worked as an administrator for four years before becoming a counseling professor in 1990.
But her mother was born to help people, Mrs. Courie said, so she retired from teaching in 1997 to focus on her private practice -- 3 Rivers Counseling in Mt. Lebanon -- which she established in 1975.
“In her heart, she was a counselor,” Mrs. Courie said. “It was where she felt she could help people the most and make a difference.”
Mrs. Cash’s practice was largely focused on family and marriage therapy, and her patients weren’t the only ones to benefit from her wisdom, said Mrs. Courie, one of Mrs. Cash’s four daughters.
“She was very strong and she taught us to be very strong, independent women -- the lesson was that you were going to be able to take care of yourself and not have to depend on anyone else,” she said.
Her mother also had the courage of her convictions, said Mrs. Courie, who recollected the time her mother insisted she sit in the principal’s office at school when she had been mistreated by a teacher.
“They didn’t want to reassign me to another class so my mom told me to sit in the office every day until they did something about it. I sat there until they finally acquiesced to me going to another class,” she said. “She was teaching us to stand up for ourselves.”
Kathy DeRose met Mrs. Cash when they worked at Duquesne together 31 year ago.
“We were both developing our careers and she was a mentor to me,” said Ms. DeRose, of Mt. Lebanon, who has since retired from teaching in the university’s education department. “She was level-headed all the time and we quickly became friends as well as colleagues.”
They became especially close in the late 1980s, when Mrs. Cash was struggling to complete her doctoral degree in counseling education at the University of Pittsburgh.
“She was halfway finished and just said, ‘I can’t go on anymore. I can’t do this,’” Ms. DeRose recalled. “I told her I would hear none of it and I just kept pushing her and pushing her.”
In the end, Ms. DeRose stepped in with more than just encouragement, and helped her friend finish her degree in 1989.
“I typed her entire dissertation to help her get it done,” she said. “That was quite a bonding experience.”
Nearly 10 years ago, the friends started a Bible study group at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Mt. Lebanon. Mrs. Cash was a devout parishioner and Eucharistic minister who converted to Catholicism when she married her husband Ned Cash in 1980.
“She longed for a Bible study group and there weren’t many opportunities at the time,” her daughter recalled. “It became very successful and got so big that they had to get other people to help out.”
During the last weeks and months of her life, Mrs. Cash and Ms. DeRose revisited all of their favorite Pittsburgh haunts, including the Phipps Conservatory and The Frick Pittsburgh.
“We did all of our favorite things one more time,” Ms. DeRose said. “We were sisters. We were always together.”
Despite her illness, her mother made it a point to have her hair and makeup done before she left the house, Mrs. Courie said.
“She had grace and dignity and always put a smile on her face,” she remembered. “And she never complained. She was thankful for what she was given.”
Along with her daughter and her husband, Mrs. Cash is survived by her other daughters Colette Williams, of Frisco, Texas, Candice Cash, of Tampa, Fla., and Carla Peace, of Washington, D.C.; her sister Marilyn Cherry, of Tallahassee, Fla.; and seven grandchildren.
A celebration of life is planned for Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Laughlin Cremation and Funeral Tributes, 222 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon. A brief visitation is planned for 9:15 a.m. Saturday at St. Bernard Catholic Church, 311 Washington Road, in Mt. Lebanon, followed by a funeral Mass at 10 a.m.
Mrs. Cash donated her remains to further ALS research and requested no flowers. Memorial donations are suggested to the ALS Association of Western Pennsylvania Chapter, 416 Lincoln Ave., Pittsburgh 15209 or online at www.cure4als.org.
Janice Crompton: jcrompton@post-gazette.com.
First Published: August 15, 2019, 10:54 p.m.