“I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

— “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

WATERVILLE — Katherine Louise Joly Devine — beloved wife of writer J.P. Devine, adored mother of Dawn Marie Devine-Sieloff and Jillana Joly Devine-Knickel, and the third child of Lorette LaPointe of Brunswick and Judge Cyril M. Joly, Sr. of Waterville — passed away peacefully on April 5, 2024, at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta.

Katherine was born on the old upper part of Main Street in one of the three houses built by her grandfather, veterinarian Dr. Achille Joly, of Quebec. Her parents had prayed for years to have a girl as their last child, and on Jan. 19, 1936, God delivered Katherine. Katherine was truly a proud child of Waterville, spending summers at the family lake home and remembering later in life how much she loved taking the canoe out on the lake by herself. As a happy, bright student she was a member of the Waterville Junior High School’s Republican Club and made Cum Laude. Always gracious, she wrote: “One of the greatest joys of my life was when you appointed me Editor in Chief of the Panther News. I consider this a great honor; it is one ambition fulfilled, and I thank you so much.”

After graduating from Waterville High School, Katherine attended (as her father insisted) Trinity College in Washington, D.C., an all-girls Catholic school, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English and Drama in 1957. The Trinilogue described her as “an auburn crown turned toward Broadway … Lady Hathaway’s super saleswoman … tailored look by day, the sophisticate by night … verbatim notes … innate poise … green-eyed, gracious Anastasia, Kay.” While at Trinity, she was as the nuns described her “extremely active”: wrote for the Trinity Times; secretary of the Literary Society; officer of the Dramatic Society; officer of the Wekanduit Society, which created projects to raise money for the missions; and wrote and directed three of the four annual class plays, a spoof on campus life. She also was selected as the Maine Cherry Blossom Princess while at Trinity.

After college, Katherine moved to New York City to pursue a career as an actress and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts alongside her friend Robert Redford, where she earned a degree in Drama in 1959 and worked as a page at NBC in Rockefeller Center. It was in New York that Katherine “famously” met J.P. Devine on the escalator in Bloomingdales Department Store, where they both worked but didn’t yet know one another. When JP needed a partner for his important audition at the Actors Studio, a friend sent Kay to meet him. Kay at that time was a dancing, singing waitress in an exclusive night club where JP waited outside in the alley each night for her and she handed him glasses of champagne out the back door, after which they walked back home to her apartment in the snow. Two months later, the proper daughter of a Maine judge allowed him to move in, but insisted he sleep on the floor near the kitchen — and their six-decade love story began.

After performing together in the theater in New York and on road shows throughout the Northeast, they married in JP’s hometown of St. Louis at City Hall and then quickly traveled back to New York in a rainstorm aboard a Greyhound bus to perform in a play together. The newlyweds then moved to Los Angeles, where Kay, after studying at both Mount St. Mary’s College for Education and Cal State LA for Spanish, began her new life in education, touching the lives of countless students, parents, and faculty for decades to come. Kay taught elementary school for more than a decade at Budlong Avenue in the underserved area of a neighborhood in South Central, where, as one of the only white teachers, she stood shoulder to shoulder with the African American faculty during racial tensions in the ‘70s in Los Angeles.

In 1984, Kay turned to her husband and asked, “Why don’t we move back to my little town in Maine, and you can be a real writer?” And so they did, and the final chapter in their love story began. Kay became a faculty member at the Waterville Junior High School, teaching sixth grade from 1984; Spanish from 2000, and Drama from 1990 to 2009. She held the title of Drama Director from 2001-2009. She also was a member of the Colby Admissions team in the summers. She retired from Waterville Junior High School in the fall of 2013 but returned to teach and tutor part-time in Spanish until she permanently retired in 2017. “Kay was truly special to me and the staff here,” writes Janie Buzzell of Waterville Junior High School. “I have very fond memories of her time here. I used to love chaperoning her field trips to Margaritas restaurant!”

In addition to JP and daughters, Dawn and Jillana, Katherine is survived by two sons-in-law whom she loved as her own, Richard Sieloff and Wayne Knickel of Los Angeles, California; several nieces and nephews, including Ann Joly, daughter of her late brother Robert; and dozens of loving, grateful students, including three surgeons and an award-winning news writer. She was predeceased by her brothers Waterville Mayor Cyril M. Joly, Jr. and Robert M. Joly. She is remembered by an extensive circle of friends who loved her intelligence, wit, book suggestions, fashion sense, faith, grace and kindness.

The family would like to thank, from the bottom of their hearts, the compassionate doctors and nurses at MaineGeneral Health who helped ease her from this life to the next, including Dr. Ervin, Dr. Corriveau, Dr. Ranganath, Dr. Sweet, Sue Cote, Brittany, Ashley, Allison, Sally, Hanna, Natasha, Shaylee, Samantha, Katie and Lucie.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider a donation to one of Kay’s favorite charities, the Waterville Food Bank.

The family will plan a celebration of life in the summer in Maine. Rest in peace, Katherine Joly Devine, you are forever loved.

“Good night, Kay Joly, see you tomorrow, and every tomorrow for the rest of our lives.”

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