Kathleen W. Goodwin died on February 15, 2025, in Brunswick, Maine.
(The following was provided by the Portland Press Herald on February 20, 2025:)
Kathleen Watson Goodwin
Kathleen Watson Goodwin, 84, of Brunswick, passed away on Saturday, February 15, 2025.
Born in Bath, on November 13, 1940, she was the daughter of Nathan W. and Kathleen Leonard Watson. Educated in Bath schools, she was the valedictorian of the class of 1959 at Morse High School. She attended the University of Maine in Portland and in Augusta and graduated from Bliss Business College in 1963.
On July 12, 1969, she married John R. Goodwin, of Brunswick, formerly of Burlington, Vt. Mr. Goodwin died in 1979.
After working in the Bowdoin College Alumni Office, she was appointed secretary to the president of the Maine State Senate in 1965. When the Legislature was out of session, she served as the Administrative Secretary to the Commissioner of Forestry. She joined the staff of Governor Kenneth M. Curtis in 1967. In 1968, she was elected to the Maine House of Representatives for five terms. She was House chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs in 1977-78 and chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Budget Review and Fiscal Policy in 1977. A member of the board of governors of the National Society of State Legislatures, she was also a member of the Task Force on Aging of the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 1970 and 1974, she was given an Outstanding Legislator Award from the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. In 1976 she was listed in the Outstanding Young Women of America.
In 1971, she was appointed chairman of the Maine Committee on Aging by Governor Curtis and was the chairman of the main delegation to the White House Conference on Aging. She was also a member of the Management Review Committee of the Maine Department of Human Services in 1975-78 as well as co-chair of the Joint Technical Review Committee of that department and member of the Title XX Task Force in 1974-77.
A member of the board of directors of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Health Agency, she received the Better Life Award from the American Health Care Association in 1976. In 1978, the Maine Veterans Coordinating Committee gave her their Outstanding Service Award. She also received service awards from the Maine Committee on Aging, the State Council of Older People, the Merrymeeting Community Action Committee, and the Central Maine Agency on Aging. Upon leaving the Legislature, she acted for sixteen years as administrative assistant to the Speaker of the Maine House before taking early retirement in 1995 to care for her parents. She also served on the Board of Visitors of the Bath Children’s Home. She was a communicant of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Bath.
She is survived by her son, Jonathan, and his wife, Marcy; two grandchildren, Sydney and Jack Goodwin, all of Wantagh, NY; and by several cousins.