Catharine Maner Lucas

Lucas—Catharine Maner Lucas, 86, on October 10, 2025, peacefully, after a stroke and a subsequent fall, at Friends House retirement community in Santa Rosa, Calif. Catharine was born on September 7, 1939, to John Paul Lucas Jr. and Maria Garlington Martin Lucas in Seneca, S.C. She was the second of six children and spent her earliest years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Catharine was raised as a Methodist. At the age of 16, she attended an American Friends Service Committee workcamp in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The only Southerner, Catharine was intrigued by the liberal ideas of the other campers.

In 1957, Catharine graduated from Myers Park High School in Charlotte, N.C., then enrolled at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, majoring in philosophy. In 1961, Catharine graduated from Bryn Mawr with honors, then attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. She changed her academic focus from philosophy to music, studying classical piano. Catharine began attending Berkeley (Calif.) Meeting.

Catharine felt socially pressured to “partner up.” She married a gentle folk dancer, and on August 12, 1964, their son, Steven, was born. Shortly thereafter, the couple divorced.

Catharine married Scott Keech. In the early 1970s, the family moved to England and later the Netherlands, where Catharine taught English at the American School in The Hague. In 1976, she returned to enter the doctorate program in the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley. She joined the staff of the Bay Area Writing Project.

At the Asilomar English Teachers Conference in 1978, Catharine met and fell in love with Mary Ellen McNelly (“Mem”). She and Scott dissolved their marriage. Catharine and Steven moved in with Mem. Soon after completing her doctorate in English, Catharine was hired by San Francisco State University, where she taught from 1982 until 2005. She designed a master of arts program in English composition.

After actively participating in Berkeley Meeting for 20 years, Catharine became a member in 1981 at the age of 42. As a member of the Marriage and Personal Ties Committee, she restarted the Oral History Project. She was an active member of the Nominating and Final Affairs Committees, and of many clearness committees. Catharine served as an elder for many.

In the mid-1980s, Catharine and Mem applied to be married under the care of Berkeley Meeting. After a difficult and sometimes contentious process that continued for more than two years, the meeting approved their request. On January 9, 1988, Catherine and Mem became the first same-sex couple to be married under the care of Berkeley Meeting, nearly three decades before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing a constitutional right to marriage equality. With this event as a precedent, Berkeley Meeting approved subsequent same-sex marriage requests without difficulty.

Soon after their marriage, Mem (who changed her name to Anna Page Lucas) became ill. She died of cancer in 2005.

By late 2011, Catharine had become deeply connected to the Berkeley Zen Center. She requested release from her membership in Berkeley Meeting. The meeting released her from membership on February 12, 2012.

Catharine moved into Friends House Santa Rosa in 2018. She actively participated in the Friends House community, implementing extensive improvements to the library as clerk of the Library Committee. She organized poetry nights and invited guest poets to come to Friends House to share their works.

Catharine’s poems and short prose pieces were published during her lifetime. Just prior to her death, she completed her (unpublished) autobiographical novel, Five Summers of Maner Louise.

Catharine is survived by her son, Steven Keech.