Catherine Kelly, who taught at Seton and Notre Dame Preparatory schools and was an executive of a women's sports equipment business, died of cancer Friday at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Guilford resident was 59.
Born in Baltimore, she was the daughter of David C. Snyder, a salesman and teacher, and the former Veronica "Vera" Kelly. Catherine "Cathe" Kelly used her mother's maiden name.
Raised on Crosby Road, she attended St. William of York School and was a 1973 Archbishop Keough High School graduate. She earned a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and had a master's degree from Notre Dame of Maryland University.
As a student, she worked at the Johns Hopkins University Press and taught science, chemistry and English at what was then Seton High School in Charles Village. From 1983 to 2000 she taught chemistry, religious subjects and ethics at Notre Dame Preparatory School in Towson.
"Teaching science was her first love," said Mary Bartel, a fellow teacher and friend. "Cathe had a knack for seeing the best in everyone and then drawing that quality out."
Former students said she had a profound influence on them and counseled them through deaths, family disagreements, break-ups and other problems.
"She had a genuine spiritualism. She carried no judgments," said Gail Caltrider, a friend who lives in Towson. "She would listen, and you could be honest with her. She would guide you through the issue and at the same time, challenged you to think differently. She was also generous with her heart, her time and her talent."
Former students said she led a campus ministry program.
"She created liturgies for Notre Dame and could make a liturgy that would be meaningful to students," said Maggie Ward, a teaching colleague and friend for 30 years. "She related to teenagers in a kind way. She was a person who made you want to be better and do better."
She was the winner of the Mildred Motsko Hunt Award for teaching excellence. She also received an Archbishop's Award, also for teaching.
"In 2000, Cathe made the very brave choice to publicly come forward with her partner, Sue Heether, the former head coach of the U.S. Women's Olympic Lacrosse team," according to a 2011 article in The Baltimore Sun.
She resigned from Notre Dame and became a vice president at a women's lacrosse sporting goods store, Sports Her Way, they owned at Towson's Kenilworth shopping center until 2013.
"Catherine Kelly and Sue Heether began their relationship in 1994, when both were teaching at a Baltimore-area Catholic school, and felt they had to keep the arrangement closely guarded for years," the 2011 story said.
The couple wife married in 2012. They had left teaching, developed their sports business and raised twins, a boy and a girl.
After Catherine Kelly was diagnosed with cancer, "They were ready to show their family to the world," the 2011 article said. "[They] are among the growing number of gay couples living and raising children in Maryland and willing to say so."
Ms. Kelly said that she once lived in fear of what people would say of her same-sex household.
"'I am not dying afraid," she said. "I don't want to live that way, and I certainly don't want to die that way," she said in The Sun article.
"We're the same families," Ms. Heether said in the article. "We're always driving our children to this and to that and asking each other 'Do you have the car seats?' and 'Do we need anything at the store?' and 'Better get milk, we always need milk.' "
The Rev. Joseph Leo Muth, pastor of St. Matthew and Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic churches, recalled Ms. Kelly as a "kind person and generous to her students. He said she had a great spirit and growing spirituality that touches the lives of many."
A funeral Mass will be offered at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church, Loch Raven Boulevard and Woodbourne Avenue.
In addition to her wife of three years, survivors include their twins, a son, Jackson David Heether, and a daughter, Katherine Veronica Heether; a brother, D. Stephen Snyder of Baton Rouge, La.; and two sisters, Mary Joseph Snyder and Anne Marie Snyder, both of Timonium.