Kathleen J Fox

Kathleen Jolley Fox passed away peacefully at Spokane Valley Hospital on the afternoon of

November 14, at the conclusion of a struggle with multiple illnesses. A lifelong and faithful

member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she died in the presence of all nine of

her adult children, while her seven sons were in an act of prayer. There is probably little that

could have pleased her more.

Kathleen was born in San Francisco, California, on August 7, 1945, to Joseph Arben and Barbara

Kirkham Jolley, during Joseph’s service as a Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard during

World War II. Joseph and Barbara eventually had six children, of which Kathleen was the only

daughter and the second oldest. Both of her parents have passed on, as has her older brother,

Kirkham Jolley; she is survived by her remaining, younger siblings, Richard, Robert, Stephen,

and William.

The family returned to Utah, where Joseph completed his education to become a mortician, and

the family settled in Vernal, where her parents ran the Jolley Mortuary for decades, which was

also their home. Kathleen would always entertain her children, grandchildren, and in time great-

grandchildren with stories of growing up and being a teen-ager around caskets and embalmed

bodies. She never, through all her life, felt any fear of death, and as the decades went by and her

health struggles increased, she would talk about her eventual death casually, with faith and

humor rather than superstition or concern.

Kathleen graduated from Unitah High School in 1963, and was throughout her high school years

an active, engaged member of her church, her school, and multiple civic associations. Kathleen

was a cheerleader, a dress designer, and a lifeguard (she was a great swimmer as a young

woman, made certain all of her children took extensive swimming lessons, and even taught her

newborns and toddlers the basics of swimming herself before her health made it difficult for her

to do so). She was named Miss Uintah Basin in 1963, and made preparations to attend Brigham

Young University in Provo, UT in the fall.

By that time, however, she had already met the man she would eventually marry and have nine

children by: James Russell “Jim” Fox. Jim was freshman roommates with Kathleen’s older

brother Kirk, and they had become close friends. Jim, a native of Spokane, traveled with Kirk to

Vernal for Thanksgiving in 1961, and there was a connection between Kathleen, a high school

junior, and Jim even then.

Kathleen began school at BYU in the fall of 1963, studying Child Development and Family

Relationships. When Jim returned to BYU from his two years’ service as a missionary in

London, England for the LDS Church, Kathleen and Jim began courting, and it wasn’t long

before they were engaged. (Jim proposed to Kathleen while riding on the old gondola that was

built over Bridal Veil Falls along the Provo River near campus.) They were married in the LDS

Salt Lake Temple on August 20, 1965.

Kathleen and Jim lived in Provo for a year, while they both completed their education (Jim in

Accounting), graduating in 1967. Their first child, Samatha (Michael) Call (Spokane Valley,

WA), was born on November 5, 1966, during that year. After graduation, they relocated to

Spokane, where Jim worked with his father, James Wesley “Bill” Fox, in the family’s feed mill,

Fox Milling Company.

In the years and decades that followed, their family grew by eight more children: Daniel (Lori)

Fox (Sandy, UT) on November 21, 1967; Russell (Melissa) Fox (Wichita, KS), on December 30,

1968; Stuart (Tiffany) Fox (Highland, UT), on July 13, 1971; Abraham (Betsy) Fox (Riverton,

UT), on January 27, 1975; Jesse (Amy) Fox (Liberty Lake, WA), on September 11, 1976; Philip

(Katie) Fox (Orem, UT), on September 10, 1978; Marjorie (Chris) Brown (Pleasant Grove, UT),

on February 11, 1981; and Baden (Mary Ellen) Fox (Henderson, NV), on October 4, 1982. All of

her children survive her, along with 64 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Like many

LDS women of her generation, Kathleen made her children the center of her emotional life,

devoting time, resources, and energy to their health, education, and happiness. The stories of her

deep connection to her children’s needs, struggles, hopes, and challenges as they grew up could

fill volumes. All who knew her recognized the enormous pride she took in her children’s

accomplishments, and her love was reciprocated; despite all the changes and complications that

raising children to adulthood requires, the bond between Kathleen and her nine children

remained firm. Despite the physical toll that long vacation trips and complicated family events

and personal excursions often placed on her, traveling with her husband and her family was

something that she embraced (however reluctantly at times) over many years.

Kathleen’s greatest passions, beyond her husband and children, was church and theater. Over the

years she served in her LDS Church congregations in innumerable capacities, though usually

involving children, young people, or music and the arts. She served at different times as

Chorister for her wards and in the primary, as well as Primary President; she also, in the 1980s,

had the opportunity to serve as Cultural Arts Director for the LDS Spokane East Stake, during

which time she organized and directed multiple large-scales musicals, all of which were

celebrated around the Spokane region: Promised Valley, Brigadoon, Sound of Music, Oklahoma,

Saturday’s Warrior, My Turn on Earth, Bye Bye Birdie, and Fiddler on the Roof, among other

smaller plays. She took enormous delight in children and grandchildren of hers who embraced

the arts, whether singing or acting or the physical arts, and was always interested to learn about

and support whatever interest in Broadway shows, musical performances, dance recitals, or

really any kind of creative work that any of her children and grandchildren had. And, of course,

often their interests and her own coincided; over the years, she cast multiple children of hers in

various roles, and enlisted her children as musical performers, directors, choreographers, and

actors in innumerable productions, melodramas, dance festivals, road shows, and so much more.

(She long had a delightful dream of being able to cast and direct all seven of her sons in a

production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but that was never to be.)

When Kathleen and Jim moved to Foxhill in Otis Orchards in 1999, she had a home that she

intended to stay for the rest of her and her husband’s life. The solitude it provided; the deer, elk,

and even occasionally moose that would pass by the windows of the kitchen and the main room;

the ample space it provided for children, grandchildren, and eventually great-grandchildren to

talk and laugh and play and perform during family reunions and other gatherings: all of these

spoke directly to her deepest desires. Kathleen, over the decades, struggled with increasing

health difficulties, and often longed to simply be subsumed by the happy chaos and noise that

family gatherings involved; Foxhill provided a wonderful balance for her, with opportunities for

both raucous celebration and quiet retreat. As the years went by, that balance became less than

always equal, and Kathleen’s retreat to her private corners in the family cabin, delighting in old

musicals and favorite movies, and turning more towards her own thoughts, became more

common, and her involvement in church matters declined accordingly. But her desire for news

about her far-flung extended family, with the latest photographs from across the country and the

world, never flagged until the very end.

In 2016, Kathleen’s path down this difficult balance faced its greatest challenge, with the entirely

unexpected death of Jim Fox on September 19, 2016. Jim’s health was far better than his wife’s,

and Kathleen (and her husband, and all her children) had assumed that she would be the first to

pass away. With Jim’s death, Kathleen had to adjust to living on her own after 51 years of

married life, and it was an adjustment that led to her retreating even more often into her private

spaces. Still, for more than five years Kathleen was able to handle living alone at Foxhill, in part

thanks to the enormous support she received from her oldest daughter, Samatha, and from one of

her sons, Jesse, both of whom still live in the Spokane area. Family reunions continued, and

spending time together as an extended clan every year without Jim’s presence as the patriarch of

the family was often bittersweet. But for the time, the hope that Kathleen would be able to make

new, solitary balance for her self was strong.

By early 2022, however, it became clear that Kathleen was in need of more care than could be

provided to her by family at Foxhill, and she became a resident at Guardian Angel Homes in

Liberty Lake. Her apartment there was small, but crowded with as many family photos, as much

art, as many mementos and books and knick-knacks as one could possibly imagine. Her younger

grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many of whom didn’t have strong memories of her years

on Foxhill, were often amazed and delighted when they visited her at her ability to take them on

tours around her apartment, and explain at length stories and histories associated with every item

on the walls and shelves around her. It was a difficult transition, but her sense of connection to

all the details of the life she had built remained firm.

In her 80 th year, Kathleen’s health took another turn for the worse, and in the end she decided to

avoid further surgeries or palliative care. Her children fully trusted in her decisions, feeling that

she knew her body and spirit better than anyone else, and arrangements were made to honor her

wishes. On November 14, 2025, her nine children, various spouses, and other family members

were gathered at Spokane Valley Hospital, as Kathleen’s body entered its final hours. As her

breathing became weaker and weaker, her sons, all priesthood holders in the LDS faith, prayed

for her to be released from her long, and very full life. The family’s prayer, and Kathleen’s wish

to reunite with her dear husband, was granted.

In view of Kathleen’s final wishes, no formal funeral services will be held. However, on

Saturday, November 29, from 6pm to 8pm, there will be a public and family viewing at Bell

Tower Funeral Home and Crematory in Post Falls, ID. In lieu of flowers, please consider

sharing any memories of Kathleen below.