Kathleen Mott, 94
Kathleen Mott, who had served during World War II with the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, died on Dec. 13 in Cooper, Fla., after recovering from a three-week bout with pneumonia in an assisted-living facility near Fort Lauderdale. Known as Kit, Mrs. Mott had been spending winters in South Florida and summers on Cooper Lane in East Hampton Village. Until last year, her daughter said, she had been very active but then seemed to lose her energy.
Mrs. Mott worked as a secretary at various businesses before becoming deputy clerk at East Hampton Town Hall, a position she held for many years. She was a longtime parishioner at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, a member of the East Hampton post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, an officer in the Ladies Auxiliary of the American Legion post in Amagansett, and a member of the South Fork Country Club, where she and her husband often played golf together.
She was born in Sag Harbor on April 8, 1923, one of three children of the former Margaret Liehr and Patrick Donohue. Her two younger brothers, Patrick (Patty) Donohue and Bobby Donohue, died very young. She grew up in Sag Harbor and Southampton, and graduated from Southampton High School.
She met her husband-to-be, Ernest Mott of East Hampton, at the Southampton roller rink in the early 1940s, and they married on Dec. 14, 1942, when Mr. Mott was on leave from his posting with a medical unit in the Army. When he died on Dec. 12, 2011, they had been married for 69 years.
Ms. Mott served in the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, known as the SPARs (“Semper Paratus: Always Ready”), from 1944 to 1945. The couple enjoyed clamming and scalloping and they saw their friends, with whom they also traveled, frequently.
One of her two daughters, Karen Mott Pitstick of Fort Lauderdale, survives. Ms. Mott’s other daughter, Maureen P. Babin of South Bound Brook, N.J., died in April of this year. Five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren survive as well. The family received visitors yesterday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. There was to be a funeral Mass said today at 10:30 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church, followed by burial in the church cemetery.