Kathleen M.H. Kappner: Activist, Scion of Pioneers

Kathleen McGrath Haynes Kappner, a consummate fund-raiser and volunteer and the granddaughter of one of Ventura County’s pioneers, died Sunday at a Ventura hospital following a brief illness. She was 85.

A Ventura resident, Kappner was the daughter of Rita and Hugo McGrath and granddaughter of Dominick and Bridget McGrath, natives of Ireland who settled in Ventura County in 1876.

The original McGrath family farm on Olivas Park Drive in Montalvo has been run as a working ranch for more than 100 years. Even today, family members live in the house built by Dominick McGrath and farm the surrounding land.

Kappner was born on the McGrath Ranch on Nov. 16, 1914, and was raised there with her two brothers and two sisters. There were more than 50 cousins in the family then, many of whom would visit the ranch regularly.

“Upon reflection, she always referred to this time [childhood] in her life as the most perfect--a time when family was cherished,” said Kappner’s daughter, Helen G. Haynes of Ventura.

Kappner was active in several charitable organizations, including the Assistance League of Ventura County. She volunteered hundreds of hours at the league’s School for Child Development in Oxnard, which prepares developmentally disabled preschoolers for grade school.

Kappner also was active in the Twelve O’Clockers and the Forty Leaguers, two social groups that host events to raise money for nonprofit groups in the county.

Haynes and her mother were among several women who helped start the National Charity League of Ventura County, which supports various philanthropic efforts, including Project Understanding in Ventura and the Gull Wings Children’s Museum in Oxnard.

Kappner was a founding member of the Catholic church Our Lady of the Assumption in Ventura, which she attended regularly.

As a child, Kappner attended St. Joseph’s School in Oxnard and later the Academy of St. Catherine’s, which is now a retirement home for nuns in Ventura. She took classes at Ventura Junior College, which is now the site of Ventura High School. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles.

After her graduation, Kappner in 1939 married Lt. Alfred Allen Haynes, who was then a pilot for the U.S. Army Air Corps. The couple had one daughter, Helen, in 1943.

“She said she wouldn’t marry until she finished school and had saved enough money in the bank,” said Kappner’s granddaughter, Kathleen Slaton.

Her husband, known by his friends as “Al,” died while serving during World War II.

Slaton said her grandmother worked as a lab technician at the former E.P. Foster Hospital in Ventura, which is now Community Memorial Hospital, and in 1952 she married Marion E. Kappner.

Kappner was preceded in death by her second husband, a grandson, two brothers and a sister.

In her free time, Kappner enjoyed traveling. She went on several opera tours in Europe and cherished vacationing in Paris.

In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a sister, Rita Mercer of Camarillo; two granddaughters, Kathleen Mavoureen Slaton of Ventura and Elizabeth Ann Slaton of San Diego; and a grandson, Sean Dominick Slaton of Ventura.

There will be a visitation from noon to 8 p.m. Friday at Ted Mayr Funeral Home in Ventura. A funeral Mass is scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Ventura, led by Msgr. Donal Mulcahy. Burial will follow at Santa Clara Cemetery in Oxnard.

Contributions in Kappner’s name may be made to the Forty Leaguers of Ventura County Scholarship Fund; the Assistance League’s School for Child Development in Oxnard or the Ventura County Museum of Art and History.