Kathleen Ann Benz

Kathleen Ann Benz, known to nearly everyone as Kathy and to a lucky few as Tete, was born on August 17, 1967, in Mission Hills, California, and died on September 5, 2026, in Santa Clarita, surrounded by the family she had spent most of her life taking care of.

Kathy grew up on Aztec Street in Sylmar, the firstborn of Joseph “Joe” and Margaret “Peggy” Benz. Joe’s blue ‘67 Chevy was a neighborhood fixture, and Kathy was usually riding shotgun. She was smart, stubborn, and very good at math – good enough to correct her teachers, which she did because being right mattered more to her than being polite.

She had a caretaker’s heart even as a child. Once, she asked for a doll. Not because she wanted a doll, but because her little sister Patty was on the way and Kathy wanted to practice holding her. This was the kind of person she was.

There was the time her brother Mikey set his room on fire while playing with his toy fire truck. Kathy put it out.

There would be a lot of fires in life, both literal and otherwise. Kathy had a habit of showing up when things went wrong and figuring out what needed to be done.

Aztec Street was also where she first met her husband, Paul “Monty” Martin, who spent his childhood making trouble and then announcing that his “mom was calling” whenever it was time to answer for it. This was also the same boy who, after watching Mary Poppins, jumped off a roof holding an umbrella, apparently expecting the laws of physics to make an exception.

Kathy would spend a good portion of her life putting up with antics of roughly this caliber. Somehow, she made it look easy.

They grew up together, went their separate ways, and found each other again later. By then Monty had returned wearing motorcycle leathers, as if the intervening years had been a brief commercial break. Kathy, who had presumably seen him do stranger things, married him anyway.

They spent 26 happy years together. They took their motorhome to the beach, to Mammoth, and anywhere the fishing was good. Kathy could make almost anything with her hands, and she brought that talent with her everywhere. She tied her own fishing flies and did it so well that Monty and her nephew Cory were forced to live with the uncomfortable fact that she was better at fishing than they were.

To her niece and nephew, Megan and Cory, Kathy was closer to a mother than an aunt. Time with them was one of the great pleasures of her life, and she gave them plenty of it.

Once, she took them to Monterey for the weekend so their mother, Patty, could get some rest. Cory came home believing steak and lobster was a perfectly normal meal for a child, while Megan had learned to say her first word: “shit.”

Kathy told that story for the rest of her life and probably always would have.

Kathy went to Alemany High School and later earned her BA in Business Administration from Cal State Northridge. She then began a 22-year career as Financial Director at College of the Canyons.

She led a team she genuinely loved, and they loved her right back. That is not something you can say about most workplaces. It says something about Kathy that, after more than two decades, the people who worked with her were still part of her life and still had something good to say about her.

That same instinct to take care of people found its way into every corner of her life.

Her great-nieces, Alessia and Bianca, knew her as Tete. They were among the luckiest people in the world because Kathy loved them fiercely and had the energy, patience, and talent to prove it.

She could cook and bake well enough to make the rest of us question what exactly we had been doing in our own kitchens. She made elaborate birthday decorations and cakes that had the unfortunate side effect of making other parents feel like they had not tried hard enough.

Alessia and Bianca were the happy beneficiaries of all of it.

So was Brodie, her dog, who won more than one costume contest largely because Kathy refused to accept the concept of an ordinary dog costume.

And then there are Tara and Taz, her cats, who spent their lives firmly convinced they were lions. A fact no one thought it wise to argue with them.

Kathy’s life was built out of small acts of love. Feeding people. Fixing things. Making things. Taking people places. Remembering what they liked. Showing up. Doing the thing that needed to be done.

She was funny without trying to be. She was stubborn when it counted and probably a few times when it didn’t. She was deeply practical, deeply loyal, and deeply loving. She took care of people because that was simply what she did.

Kathy is preceded in death by her sister, Patricia “Patty” Benz. She is survived by her husband, Paul “Monty” Martin; her parents, Margaret “Peggy” and Joseph Benz; her brother, Michael “Mikey” Benz; her niece and nephew, Megan Benz and Cory Benz; and her great-nieces, Alessia and Bianca.

She will be missed by all of them, and by the many people who were lucky enough to be loved by her.

A Mass will be held at St. Clare Catholic Church in Santa Clarita at 1:00 p.m. on September 22, followed by a graveside service at Eternal Valley Memorial in Santa Clarita at 3:00 p.m. A reception will follow at 4:30 p.m. at the Northpark Clubhouse.

St. Clare Catholic Church (1:00 PM)

19606 Calla Way, Canyon Country, CA 91351

Eternal Valley Memorial Park (3:00 PM)

23287 Sierra Hw, Newhall, CA 91321

Northpark Community Clubhouse (4:00 PM)

28201 Northpark Dr, Valencia, CA 91354