Catherine Monaghan Kilduff's Obituary
Catherine Monaghan Kilduff, a longtime resident of Oakland’s Rockridge district, died in San Francisco on May 3rd after a brief illness. She was 84.
Kilduff, the eldest of five children, was born and raised in York, Pennsylvania. She attended Trinity College in Washington, DC with a full scholarship, and graduated in 1955 with a degree in Chemistry.
After college, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park. While there she met her husband, Raymond F. Kilduff, a Stanford University graduate who was attending medical school at UC San Francisco. They were married in York in 1958.
The first of their three sons, Brian, was born in Berkeley in 1959. Paul followed in 1962 while the family wast stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolna, a Marine base where Dr. Kilduff was stationed as a pyschiatrist. John was born in Oakland in 1965 after the family returned to the Bay Area. In 1970 the Kilduff family settled in the Rockridge area of Oakland and joined the parish of Newman Hall in Berkeley.
While raising three children, Catherine earned a teaching credential from UC Berkeley and taught high school science as a substitute teacher in the East Bay. She also volunteered tutoring children in Oakland and worked as a docent at the Oakland Museum for many years.
Catherine enjoyed writing, entertaining, cooking, baking, gardening, music, travel, photography, parish activities, reading, and just about any home repair — the only thing she wouldn’t attempt to fix herself was her car. She was an expert seamstress and made many beautiful pieces of clothing for herself, her children, and her grandchildren.
Catherine’a husband Ray died in 2010. She is survived by sons Brian, Paul and John, daughter-in-laws Janet Cowperthwaite and Sari Rodriguez, grandchildren Bonnie, Nicholas and Alice, sisters Claire Monaghan and Edna Loughlin, brothers-in-laws Ted Sheppard, Nelson Loughlin, and Phil Kilduff, sister-in-law Beverly Monaghan, and many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews.
A Funeral Mass will take place at Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish, Berkeley, California on May 22 at 1:30pm. A reception will follow.
What’s your fondest memory of Catherine?
What’s a lesson you learned from Catherine?
Share a story where Catherine's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Catherine you’ll never forget.
How did Catherine make you smile?