Biography

Katherine (“Kay”) Daigle, age 92, passed away December 26, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona after a brief illness.

Kay moved to Santa Catalina Villas in Tucson in 2001 from Oklahoma City to join her daughter and son-in-law, who had retired to Arizona from Chicago that same year.

She was born in 1917 in Mannheim, Germany and immigrated to Chicago in 1927, becoming a U.S. citizen along with her parents, Friedrich and Maria Nieding. A talented artist, Kay won a scholarship to take classes at the Art Institute of Chicago after graduating from Foreman High School, but she chose to enter the work world as a bookkeeper instead. In 1942, she joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1942 as a member of the first group of WAC’s to enlist.

Eventually rising to the rank of sergeant, Kay met her future husband, Oscar L. Daigle, a resident of Maine and a first lieutenant in the Air Force, on Christmas Eve 1944 in Savannah, Georgia. They married in 1945 and settled in the Chicago suburbs before moving to Oklahoma City in 1974 when he was transferred there by Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. Kay also lived three years in Brazil while her husband worked there as a chemical engineer for a West Chicago chemical company.

She was preceded in death by her husband, who died in 2000. Survivors include her daughter, Karen (Norman) Schickedanz of SaddleBrooke, Arizona; granddaughter Elizabeth (Chris) Haile and great-granddaughter Audrey Haile of Washington, DC; and grandson Brian (Megan) Schickedanz of Palatine, Illinois.

Burial will be at Resurrection Cemetery in Oklahoma City. Donations in her name may be made to St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, 5150 N. Valley View Road, Tucson, AZ 85718 or Odyssey VistaCare Hospice Foundation, 5210 E. Williams Circle, Ste. 300, Tucson, AZ 85711.

Interment

Monday March 1, 2010, 9:30 am at Resurrection Memorial Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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