Kathleen M. Doyle 1938-2025

She was born on March 15, 1938, in Youngstown, the daughter of James A. and Marie Reese Dalton and the baby sister to Barbara. The nickname Kush was bestowed upon her by her father. It was short for Macushla (Gaelic for “my darling”) and you can tell who has known her since childhood, as they will refer to her as Kush. To everyone else, she was Kathleen or Kathy.

Kathy had a special childhood. Most of you do not know that she was a 3-year-old “Miss Youngstown” in 1941. A grainy photo from the event shows a small girl with a smirk, a trophy and the cutest potbelly. As she entered middle school and into high school, she spent many hours volunteering at Zedaker’s Horse Farm. She participated in just about every extracurricular activity at Poland Seminary High School. The quote that best defined Kathy accompanied her photo in the high school yearbook, “Arguing is my chief delight; I can’t be wrong. I must be right.” She graduated in 1956 and was an active member of the class reunion committee for many years.

Kathy met her future husband, Robert A. “Bob” Doyle in 1956, while both were 18 years old and working at the Youngstown YMCA. She turned him down the first time he asked her out, but finally agreed to dinner and a movie. Bob had a plan. Dinner was romantic, classy and affordable — it was at the YMCA cafeteria. That’s right. “She went out with me again, didn’t she?” Neither remembered the movie.

Six years of dating and 63 years of marriage resulted in a strong bond between Kathy and Bob. Kathy nearly lost Bob to a pulmonary embolism in the mid-1980s, but her strength and resilience were in full effect as she nursed him through that and some other health challenges.

Following work in various jobs at the YMCA — youth secretary, associate youth director, women and girls director and girls director at Camp Fitch — Kathy left the workforce to raise her daughters, Amy and Carrie. After a few years, when the girls had settled into school, Kathy worked at Youngstown Building Materials and then spent 28 years as the office manager at the Monday Musical Club.

Throughout her adult life, Kathy was an active member of many organizations, boards and clubs: Beta Sigma Phi; the Junior League of Youngstown; the Youngstown Hearing and Speech Center; the Boardman Township zoning board; Monday Book Review Club; Monday Musical Club Foundation; the women’s group of the Four Square Club; and the Pymatuning Century Sailing Club.

Those who met Kathy learned she was practical, no-nonsense and realistic– and also sassy. Amy and Carrie recall hearing throughout their childhood, “Look with your eyes, not your hands”; “Because I said so!”; and, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” And, when someone once commented on how helpful Bob was being at an event that Kathy organized, she immediately said, “You don’t think he came this way, do you?” She had us all trained.

Kathy loved to shop and loved a bargain even more. She shopped for clothes, home decor and Christmas gifts. Bob still complains about the number of accent pillows that adorn every sofa, chair and bed in the house. She never left the house without wearing a fully color-coordinated outfit that included shoes, purse and lipstick. Her Christmas gift list was often fully purchased by Labor Day. And the ladies at Four Square know that she had an uncanny knack for scoring the best gift at the Christmas gift exchange.

She was an avid reader and loved crossword puzzles. She and Bob played cards or board games almost daily. She played mahjongg weekly with a special group of ladies and she treasured those times. Kathy was competitive and relished defeating Bob and the girls when they played Hand & Foot or other games. She liked listening to soft jazz and she and Bob enjoyed attending Music on Main over the years.

When faced with a cancer diagnosis just after her 87th birthday, Kathy met it head-on, with clarity, a realistic outlook and her usual combination of practicality and snark. When first diagnosed, she told the doctor, “I am not ready to go yet. I still have hexes to put on people.” If you think she was joking, you would be wrong. Her daughters are convinced she will haunt them if they decide to throw away a box that has a good lid or to recycle a jar that could be used later for storing jam or homemade soup.

Kathy stated early on that if surgery and chemo didn’t provide good results, she would call hospice and die at home — on her own terms, always. No one would dare question or suggest that she should do something else. When it was clear that chemo was not successful, she discontinued treatment. She hugged the oncologist and said, “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Kathy is already missed by her husband, Bob; daughters, Amy Doyle of Madison, Wisconsin, and Carrie Doyle of Pittsburgh, Pa.; her sister, Barbara Dalton Emerling of Los Altos, California; and her brother and sister-in-law, Richard and Carol Doyle of Cromwell, Connecticut. Many nieces, nephews, friends, neighbors and family we chose are among the many more who will miss Kathy’s sense of humor, style and sass.

Kathy’s family extends special thanks to Dr. Joseph Zeno, Dr. Jordan Winter and the team at University Hospital, Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland; and Dr. John Graham and the staff at the Blood and Cancer Center in Canfield. The team at Patriot Hospice, Girard, was especially compassionate and caring in Kathy’s final two weeks; they perform the work of angels.

In lieu of flowers, consider donating, in Kathy’s name, to the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley, https://mahoningvalleysecondharvest.org/. Kathy frequently acknowledged the need for their services, and she greatly admired the work they do in the community.

A time of gathering will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, at the Davis-Becker Funeral Home, 8536 Market St., Boardman, OH 44512.

(special notice)