Faith "Kathy" Vaught

Faith “Kathy” Vaught, passed away on July 1, 2026, from complications of leukemia. She died with dignity and grace, surrounded by her children at the age of 77. She is survived by her three children, Adam (Heather) of LaGrange Park, IL; Laura (Dave) of Springfield, IL; Grant (Elida) of Washington, D.C.; and by her grandchildren, Thomas George Vaught and Eleanora Mae Vaught of LaGrange Park, IL. She was predeceased by her parents, many aunts and uncles, numerous cousins, and her cherished Sadie Little and Chappie Gizmo, all of whom she loved.

Kathy was born on April 3, 1949, in Chicago as the only child of Norman and Betty Bossle. She lived the first eight years of her life in an apartment in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood. In 1956, she moved with her parents to Park Forest, IL, where she spent the rest of her childhood.

She graduated from Rich Central High School as an Illinois State Scholar in 1966 and attended Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where she studied education and became the first in her immediate family to attend college. At SIU, she met her future husband, Tom Vaught. They married on July 10, 1971.

In 1973, Tom enrolled at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey. From 1973 to 77, Kathy and Tom lived just outside New York City, where they immersed themselves in the city’s theater and restaurant scene and made lifelong friends.

In 1977, Tom was admitted to the bar in Illinois and offered a job at Land of Lincoln Legal Services in Decatur. They bought a Victorian house in Niantic. It was in that home that she raised a family with Tom. She would spend the rest of her life in Niantic. On the day she passed, she said, “I love that little town,” with tears in her eyes.

When her kids were young, she worked as a substitute teacher, mostly in Riverton, IL, which offered flexibility. During those years, she also served on the Board of the Niantic Swim Club, ensuring a generation of Niantic kids had a place to call home during the summers. She spent almost two decades as Niantic’s village clerk and later Trustee, elected a few times despite her reluctance, because she was asked to provide a steady hand.

In the early 1990s, Kathy was hired as a special education teacher at Stephen Decatur High School. In college, she decided to go by “Kathy” because she made friends with young women named Hope, Chasity, and Charity. She thought “Faith” was a bit much in that group. Her husband, children, and even her parents would come to think of her as “Kathy.”
But when she was hired as a teacher, “Faith” was her legal name, so rather than explaining “Kathy” repeatedly, she began using the name Faith again. She devoted herself to teaching and earned two Master’s degrees. Ultimately, she ended her career as a teacher at MacArthur High School in Decatur. As a result, to this day, people know her as “Kathy” or “Faith” depending on when they met her.

She was a devoted member of the Illinois Education Association and the National Education Association, where she met many great friends. She loved being a union representative and never stopped advocating for the importance of teachers in society.

She spent her retirement years devoted to the Friends of the Library in Decatur. She loved reading and traveling. There wasn’t an obscure, off-the-beaten-path, hole-in-the-wall, tourist trap that she couldn’t find interest in. But she feared heights. So Kathy and Adam watched Tom, Laura, and Grant climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty, but she enjoyed hearing about the view from the top. Her biggest regret was that she didn’t get to see Washington and Oregon: the last of the lower 48 she needed to visit.

She loved history and the story of people. There was no person’s story too small for her to care about. She quietly mentored and supported untold numbers of kids from Niantic and Decatur, giving everything from a talk to a hug to let kids know how special they were, even if no one else saw it. She let many kids know life gave them too much potential to give it away to the inertia of mediocrity. She instilled in her children, friends, and students that failure is not measured by a lack of success, but an unwillingness to try your best.

It’s impossible to sum up a life in a few paragraphs. But Kathy believed deeply in the ability of a few concerned citizens to take up a cause to make the world better. She believed in the good faith of those she disagreed with the most, and recognized their decency and humanity. If those of us she leaves behind take the same view, our country would be closer to the one she hoped for.