CIA officer and political trailblazer
LUCY KILLEA, 1922 - 2017
Lucy Killea, a former San Diego City Council member and Democratic state legislator whose independent streak put her at odds with the Catholic Church and her own party, has died. She was 94.
From her work at the CIA and on Eleanor Roosevelt’s staff at the first U.N. General Assembly in 1946 to her early support of San Diego’s trolley and downtown redevelopment, she forged her own path in a political world largely dominated by men.
“She was always ladylike, gracious and tough as nails,” said former Assemblywoman and state Sen. Dede Alpert.
Killea died Tuesday, years after she was found to have cancer.
She served on the City Council for five years and spent 14 years in the state Assembly and Senate, retiring from public service in 1996.
Her most famous stand came in 1989, when she faced off with Leo T. Maher, then bishop of the San Diego Roman Catholic Diocese. Maher banned Killea from receiving Communion because of her support for abortion rights.
Killea respected the decree within the diocese but still attended Mass in San Diego and received Communion at churches in other dioceses.
“She just had that wonderful way where she was so nice about everything, and a classy person, but never would let anyone think she wasn’t strong and wouldn’t follow through,” Alpert said.
Killea was born Lucy Gold Lytle on July 31, 1922, in San Antonio, the daughter of a ballerina who toured in Europe and died of tuberculosis when Killea was 8. Her father, a judge, was killed a year later in a hunting accident. Aunts and a family friend helped raise Killea, her older sister and her two brothers.
She joined the CIA in 1948, preparing reports on postwar construction in Europe. She left the agency in 1956 when she had her first son and when her husband was named the consul general in Monterrey, Mexico, by President Eisenhower.
Killea moved to San Diego in 1968 and was appointed to the council in 1978.
She is survived by her sons Jay and Paul.