Kathleen Dougherty
Kathleen Dougherty danced with strangers when her dance partner was getting a drink. She listened to soft rock at metal volume, had two children and collected science degrees during their naps. After a long career at Chevron and a retirement of volunteer work, dementia began to wear on the mind she had always distinguished herself with. Kathy fought back by using her legs to wander around San Francisco and her hands to knit a thousand scarves. She wanted to be useful and was unpretentious in how she did it: Working in a chemistry lab, middle-managing at a corporation, serving food to the homeless, holding people’s hands. She passed away Easter Morning, tired and at peace.
Kathleen Keirle was born on March 5th, 1945 in Philadelphia. Her father, William, was a coal miner who had left Wilkes-Barre for Philly in search of better times. Her mother Mary died of breast cancer when Kathy was two, so Kathy was raised by her father and her stepmother Gertrude – a friend of the family who had helped care for Mary at the end.
Bill Keirle never finished high school and according to Kathy’s stories liked to hang out in a tank top and chomp unlit cigars while listening to Phillies games on the radio and reading two or three newspapers. He wanted his daughter to be educated and was adamant she went to college and that she major in something that sounded hard. Kathy attended nearby Chestnut Hill College and got her degree in chemistry.
Early in her senior year, Kathy met a Temple University law student named Anthony Dougherty. Anthony was from Wilmington, Del. but was determined to move to California. They got married after their graduations, in November 1967, and spent their honeymoon driving cross-country to San Francisco with a trailer and $500. San Francisco was cheaper then.
Kathy worked for Shell Oil for a few years and left after having her daughter Nora in 1970. Friends and family assumed that would be the end of her career. Kathy proceeded to get a Masters in biochemistry from the University of San Francisco and a Ph.D in toxicology from the University of California, Davis. She gave birth to her son Conor while she was in the middle of writing her dissertation, and after graduate school went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Melvin Calvin, the U.C. Berkeley professor and Nobel Laureate. Kathy started working at Chevron shortly after.
Instead of moving to the suburbs like professional families were supposed to, Anthony and Kathy made the fortuitous decision to buy a home in Noe Valley in 1972. It has been their base ever since. They spent several years in Davis and Napa, traveled around the world, and made frequent visits to New York and Wilmington to visit their families, friends and grandchildren on the East Coast.
But Kathy was always happy to get back to San Francisco. She had been walking up and down 24th street since the Farmers Market was a gas station and the height of technological progress was Bell Market’s talking Coke machine. After retirement, when her memory started to fail her, it seemed as if the last thing she’d forget was the route from her house to Martha & Bros. Coffee.
About six million Americans are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and the number is projected to grow to 14 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Nothing can be said about Kathy’s experience to make this disease less brutal or its ravages less humiliating. What can be said, however, is that she approached it with courage and never allowed Alzheimer’s to keep her from being of use.
In the early years of the disease Kathy dished free food at the St. Anthony’s Dining Room. She knit somewhere between 500 and 1,000 scarves and donated them to St. Anthony’s, her grandkids, other people’s kids, other people’s grandkids, and really anyone who walked in the door. Ever the scientist, Kathy guinea-pigged herself in a drug trial and felt good about being part of an experiment, whether it helped her or not.
At home, Kathy’s legacy was being the calm and reasonable glue that held together her loud and argumentative family. She and Anthony were married for just shy of 51 years. Her daughter Nora lives in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. with her husband Robert Joyce and their three daughters: Margaret (Maggie), Mary (Molly), and Kathleen (Kate). Her son Conor lives in Oakland with his wife Candace Jackson and their daughter Callie (Callie).
At work, Kathy’s legacy was being part of the army of Liz Claiborne-wearing career women who transformed corporate America in the 1970s and 1980s. She was never an outspoken leader type, just reliable and uninterested in complaining. There were times when she held her breath in the face of sexism then slogged across the Bay Bridge blasting Air Supply and walked in the house crying. But through a million little protests, she pushed on the door to the patriarchy so that the next generation could push harder. On the eve of her retirement from Chevron, Kathy’s colleagues made her a goodbye scrapbook and photo album full of inside jokes and pictures of her in short haircuts and shoulder-padded blouses. One of the pages had a deposition Kathy took when she was called to testify as an expert in a trial. The lawyer had begun by asking her if she wanted to be addressed as Miss or Mrs. Kathy’s one-word response was: “Doctor.”
On Thursday April 12, 2018 a service will be held at St James Church, Guerrero St & 23rd St., San Francisco, CA with 10 a.m. family visitation and 11 a.m. Mass.
In lieu of flowers, contributions are suggested to UCSF Memory and Aging Center, St. Anthony’s Dining Room, or The Alzheimer’s Association of Northern California. Burial will be private.