Visitation and Mass in Memory of Kay McSpadden

We were saddened to learn of the death of Kay McSpadden, former Vice President of RPWRHS. Kay, a long-time volunteer and Board member, passed away on February 24 after a long illness.

A native of Lewiston, New York, a village on the Canadian border north of Niagara Falls, Kay came to Chicago to attend graduate school at Loyola University. She lived in Rogers Park and West Ridge for more than fifty years until moving to Evanston in early 2020.

Kay received a Ph.D. from Loyola University, with a dissertation on the poet Anne Sexton in 1984. She had a long career as a Professor of Communications, Arts & Skills at Truman College, where she taught English and English as a Second Language for 37 years before retiring in 2005.

While at Truman, she received a grant from the Fulbright-Hays Scholarship program to spend a year teaching English in England. After returning, she was named to the program’s National Screening Committee, and remained active in the Chicago Fulbright Association.

She joined the Rogers Park Historical Society in 1991, and by 2012 was contributing articles to The Historian newsletter and serving as Volunteer Coordinator. She joined the Board of Directors as Vice President in 2013.

As Vice President, Kay was responsible for organizing Living History Programs, walking tours and other special events. She ably represented RPWRHS in the campaign to name Marion Mahony Griffin Beach, and initiated the transfer of our archives to the Northside Neighborhood History Center.

On May 15, 2011, Kay became an oblate of St Scholastica Monastery, a long-standing part of the Rogers Park/West Ridge community. An oblate is a lay person seeking to deepen their spiritual life in connection with a community of vowed religious. Preparation for oblation requires serious study. The candidate must become familiar with the rule of St. Benedict, get to know the community of sisters and oblates of St Scholastica, deepen prayer life, practice lectio divina, a form of prayer embraced by followers of St Benedict, and live in the spirit of St. Benedict.

We will miss Kay’s dedication, her wisdom and her thoughtful and enduring kindness.

There will be a memorial visitation followed by a funeral mass at Saint Scholastica Chapel, 7430 North Ridge Boulevard. Interment will be private. For details or to share a memory go to https://www.smithcorcoran.com/obituaries/Katherine-Frances-McSpadden?obId=47479758