Remembering Kathleen Gilligan
Kathleen Martha Gilligan passed away at her home in Andover, MA on August 10th, 2021, at the age of 75. She was surrounded by friends, family and loved ones in her final days.
Kathleen, known to many friends and colleagues as Kathy or Kate, was born in Albany, NY, on August 13, 1945, and grew up in the mill town of Cohoes in upstate New York.
Her mother, Evelyn Stringer Gilligan, was a bookkeeper, and her father, Francis Sylvester Gilligan was a firefighter. They lived in a tarpaper shack outside of town most of the year, and would spend the winters in downtown Cohoes with her maternal grandmother. Kathleen showed interest in acting and creative writing from a young age, participating in a local community theater program and publishing poems and essays in student literary magazines. She attended Keveny Memorial Academy, a strict Catholic High School, and classmates remembered her fondly as having a “different flair,” and showing up to school functions dressed in her father’s tuxedo.
Kathleen attended Emerson College in Boston, MA, and graduated in 1967 with a B.S. in Communication. She received a scholarship that covered her tuition, but not room and board, leading her to live out of the back of a pickup truck in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, scrounging together funds for living expenses, while working as a model for life drawing classes, a lighting tech, stage manager, and understudy in Emerson’s theater programs. A lifelong advocate for peace and justice, she attended her college graduation in 1967 wearing army fatigues to protest the Vietnam War.
After graduating, she played the Wicked Witch of the West in a touring children’s theater production of the Wizard of Oz before moving to Manhattan, NY to pursue a career in acting. She worked as a waitress, was an extra in the Metropolitan Opera, and performed in a handful of off-off-Broadway productions. She later moved to a communal house in North Bergen, NJ, and attended Woodstock music festival in 1969. She loved to travel, and spent a year in the early 70s living in a Volkswagen Westfalia camper van, which she drove from New Jersey through Mexico to Belize. She later acquired a 1972 Volkswagen camper van, which she cherished throughout her life. It still runs today.
In 1971, Kathleen took a job at the Hudson County Welfare Board as a caseworker working in Jersey City, NJ. She attended Rutgers University and graduated in 1979 with a Masters of Social Work. Kathleen believed in the power of helping people communicate and listen to each other, and she built a career around it for the rest of her life. In 1995 she started EXL Group, a management and human resources consulting firm with clients ranging from non-profits and hospitals to Fortune 500 companies. She was active in her field and provided mentorship and guidance to many, especially other women in a predominantly male-dominated industry.
Kathy will be remembered for her kindness, patience, and quiet, rebellious strength. She had an amazing ability to put people at ease and get them to skip the small talk and speak from the heart. She loved people, marched to the beat of her own drum, never passed a yard sale without stopping, and was a fantastic disco dancer. She was enamored with the American Southwest, and spent many winters in Tucson, AZ. She was an active member of the North Parish of North Andover Unitarian Universalist, and embodied the universalist spirit of unconditional love. She believed in the inherent worth and dignity of every human, and showed it every day with her words and actions.
Kathleen is survived by her loving family: her husband of 37 years, James Alan Greer; their child, Evan Gilligan Greer; and grandchild, Saoirse Fitzgerald-Greer. In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations to Partakers: College Behind Bars, a program where Kathleen volunteered as a mentor supporting incarcerated people who are seeking higher education.
