Catherine's life was devoted to serving others. She remained unmarried for many years as she worked with her mother on the family plantation, "Mildendo", which Mrs. Sarah S. Carrington inherited in 1829 upon the death of her husband. On August 6th 1860, on the eve of war, Catherine was finally married to Judge Lucas P. Thompson at "Mildendo". She was 35 and he 62: she was his third wife. She found herself ministering to both her elderly mother, her husband and the motherless children who came to live with her at "Hill Top" in Staunton, VA from where the girls could go to school. War's end brought changes for her with the death of her husband in 1866 and her mother in 1872. Part of the "Hill Top" estate was sold to the Augusta Female Seminary (Mary-Baldwin University) by the Judge's executors in 1871 and the balance of the lot and the home during the 1874/75 school year. As her brother Dr. W.F. Carrington struggled with the management of "Mildendo", of which she remained a quarter owner, her nieces and one nephew moved to Texas to start new lives in the late 1860s. Their move would soon involve Catherine, referred to as "Aunt Kate" in family correspondence, in the lives of their budding families. She was called upon to take over the rearing of Allen Carrington's first two children by his first wife in Houston after the death of their mother in 1879, while at the same time she remained heavily involved with the children of her nieces Mildred & Maria. Once she took over the rearing of Allen's children, the devotion of her life came to focus on her great niece little "Pattie". For nine years that child filled her world with love and laughter until one night on July 2, 1889 both were caught in a violent train wreck at Thaxton, Va in which Pattie perished. (See "Lost At Thaxton" by Michael E. Jones) Disconsolate from that experience she nevertheless continued on to join with her brother Charles as they battled in the courts trying to save their family home in Halifax County, VA. Their efforts proved futile. She spent her final years living near and attending to the needs of her handicapped great niece, Mary Hutcheson, in Washington, D.C. After a full life of family service she was admitted to the Garfield Memorial Hospital following the severe paralysis brought on by a cerebral hemorrhage. She lay there for eight months. Her niece Mrs. Maria Carrington Weems brought her body to Richmond & laid her to rest on June 21 near her brother Dr. W.F. Carrington and beloved 'child' Pattie. Despite the middle name given by her niece on the tombstone as "Lightfoot", her middle name was likely Scott. Her mother's 1862 will, various census reports and her marriage record all show the middle initial as "S". In 1892 she became a member of the recently founded DAR, #508.