Frances K. "Kay" Colley, a retired Howard County mathematics teacher and volunteer, died Monday of breast cancer at her Westminster home. She was 83.
Frances Kathleen Sparling, the daughter of a Lehigh Valley Railroad engineer and a homemaker, was born in Bethlehem, Pa.
Mrs. Colley was raised in Hazelton, Pa., and Leighton, Pa., where she graduated in 1945 from Leighton High School.
She was a 1949 graduate of what is now East Stroudsburg University in East Stroudsburg, Pa., where she majored in both math and English.
In 1950, she married her college sweetheart, Joseph A. Colley, also a teacher, and the couple moved to Mount Airy.
Mrs. Colley began teaching math in 1951 at Milford Mill High School and later at Pikesville High School and Wilde Lake High School, from which she retired in 1987.
For more than 20 years, Mrs. Colley was an active member of the Springfield State Hospital Women's Auxiliary, where she had been president.
A former longtime Randallstown resident who moved to Westminster in 2004, Mrs. Colley had been a member of Holy Family Roman Catholic Church and the Women's Sodality.
Mrs. Colley, who enjoyed camping, swimming, playing the piano and travel, was also a member of the Wisdom Club and Catholic Daughters.
She was a communicant of St. John Roman Catholic Church, 43 Monroe St., Westminster, where a memorial Mass will be offered at noon Monday.
In addition to her husband, who is a retired Franklin High School educator, Mrs. Colley is survived by a son, John N. Colley of Berlin; three daughters, Kathleen C. Laudeman of Reisterstown, Carolyn C. Cherry of New Windsor and Anita Colley of London, England; a brother, John McG. Sparling of Louisville, Ky.; and six grandchildren.