Catherine deBois Maclaren Corbett spent her childhood moving between boarding schools, only occasionally visiting her mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. Consequently, when she married and moved to Chicago in 1946, she devoted herself to involving parents in their children’s education. “She helped parents organize their thinking and become more assertive,” said her son Andrew. “She helped a lot of the parents get better education for their kids.” Mrs. Corbett, 81, died Monday, Dec. 29, of a torn aorta in a Newark, Del., hospital. Born and raised in Scotland, Mrs. Corbett attended one year of college before enlisting in the Women’s Royal Air Force during World War II. She worked at a weather station in Liverpool, England, collecting information from various locations, plotting maps and communicating with forecasters by Teletype. One of the forecasters was Charles Corbett, who became curious enough to ask her out. He proposed a year and a half later by telephone. “She had a rare smile,” her husband said. “She was in great physical shape. So much so she could twist my arm anytime she wanted to.” They married after the war and moved to Chicago, where they raised three children in the South Shore neighborhood. In the early 1960s, she was a member of the Illinois Congress of Parents and Teachers and the Chicago Urban League. At the same time she ran the altar guild at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church on the South Side. In 1964 the couple moved to Hatboro, Pa., where Mrs. Corbett worked for a dentist who taught her to be a dental assistant. When the couple returned to Chicago in 1969, she went to work for Michael Reese Hospital as a manager in the dental clinic. The couple retired to Newark in 1987. Mrs. Corbett is also survived by another son, Charles; a daughter, Dorothy Seaman Corbett; and four grandchildren. Services will be private.
