Catherine “Kate” Hill Tapia (1961 – 2025)
Catherine “Kate” Hill Tapia died peacefully on November 17, 2025 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts from breast cancer. She will be missed by her husband, Rene Tapia, and extensive community of friends and family in the Berkshires, Ecuador, Ohio, Nepal and beyond.
Kate was the 10th child of eleven of Vincent de Paul Hill and Miriam Joan Frazer. She was born and raised in Loveland, Ohio where the family grew and raised their own food in the Grailville community.
After graduating from Ohio University with degrees in Organizational Communications and Women’s Studies. Kate’s first job was at Tufts University in Boston. She moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts to take a job with the Women’s Service Center working with displaced homemakers, now part of the Elizabeth Freeman Center, and then worked with the Berkshire Prevention Alliance.
Kate loved to travel; she left Pittsfield for a Spanish language immersion course in Ecuador . She then volunteered for a year in Bolivia with Sisters of Charity at Amanaceer working with young people providing housing, education and training. She continued to travel to family in Nepal and Ecuador and to Paris and Canada for work.
For over twenty years, she worked for The Annie Selke Companies aka Pine Cone Hill in a range of managerial positions and also where she met her husband René Tapia. Most recently she worked at the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission.
Always up for a party and dancing, Kate and René had two weddings. The first with friends in the Berkshires and then with family in Ohio, sealing their friendship and love. They celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary this month.
Kate was naturally curious and loved meeting people and learning their stories. She had a wide and wonderful circle of friends that she loved connecting to each other. She had an uncanny ability to recall incredible details of everyone’s lives, making people feel seen and heard. It was this generosity of spirit that led her and René to open their home to many. She loved connecting people from all her different worlds from work, travel, community, friends and family - which were expansive! She loved dancing with René and loved singing with friends and family, including hosting an annual “Sing” party in December. She enjoyed cooking, entertaining, gardening, hiking, and being with her Spanish dinner group. Kate loved beautiful things, especially textiles and had a vast collection of scarves and shawls from around the world.
She was pre-deceased by her parents, father-in-law Jose Rafael Tapia, brother-in-law Tom Bible and nephew Jay Shah. She is survived by her husband René Tapia, and her ten siblings Mary Hill Hermann (Dan), Margaret Shah (Vijay), Monica Hill, Joseph Hill, Patrick Hill (Becky), Miriam Hill (Tom Bible), Vince Hill (Kay), Brigid Hill (Phil Ping), Jim Hill (Theresa), and John Hill (Patti), and dozens of nieces and nephews and more extended and found family.
Her motto, which she had taped to her refrigerator, was “Live and Love Well.” To honor Kate’s memory, a donation is suggested in lieu of flowers to the Elizabeth Freeman Center, The Breasties, or the Denise Kaley Fund at the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. A memorial to celebrate Kate’s life will be scheduled at a later date.