Paula Newman

Paula was born November 18, 1942, the eldest daughter of Herbert Kiles and Mary Luger Kiles. Her father, a graduate of Texas A&M, was an electrical engineer at Duquesne Power and Light. Mary was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. Marythen became an elementary school teacher in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Two years after her birth, Paula was joined by her sister Ann.

During Paula’s childhood her family took numerous trips across the country. Most of these trips were made prior to the creation of the modern interstate system. During one of her trips to Texas to visit her grandparents, Paula and her family were stuck for several days in Oklahoma. Heavy rain had turned the road to impassable mud, enabling them to meet members of the Western Band of Cherokee Indians. Her family also visited many famous national parks. Her father took pictures of Paula and her sister as Old Faithful erupted behind them. At the Grand Canyon, while Paula was still a young girl, she fearlessly rode a donkey with her sister to the bottom of the canyon, while her parents stayed at the canyon rim. An avid lover of wildlife, when they visited Yellowstone Park she played with bear cubs.Paula attended Beaver Falls High School from 1956 through 1960. Paula met one of her lifelong friends there: Ginger Michaels. Another one of Paula's classmates was Joe Namath, the future Super Bowl winning quarterback for the New York Jets. Joe and Paula were in the same Spanish class. Although asked, Paula did not allow Joe to copy her homework, despite everyone being enamored by Broadway Joe (including his teachers).

After graduating from high school, Paula attended Seton Hill College where she studied dietetics and nutrition. While attending college she made several lifelong friends, including Loretta Stanton with whom she stayed in touch with for the remainder of her life.

After graduating from college, Paula fearlessly took a solo trip to Europe. During her trip she visited Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and Denmark, making new friends along the way. Paula was always proud of her Bavarian heritage.

After returning to the US, Paula began her career as a registered dietitian by joining the US Health Service. She was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Health Service and began her residency while stationed in Staten Island, New York. While there, Paula met John Newman, a Coast Guardsman who had been injured in a boat explosion. After Paula completed her rotation in Staten Island, she was stationed at Bethesda Hospital in Maryland. While Paula was doing laundry, she needed to use a dryer that was filled with someone else’s dry clothes. Paula removed the clothes from the dryer and neatly folded them, then placed them on a table. This was the beginning of her friendship with Kathy and Jack Fedigan. Kathy, Jack, John, and Paula went on numerous double dates. John would bring steaks from his job at a meat packing plant and Jack would cook them on a hibachi outside the window of Kathy and Paula's apartment. There were frequent complaints about the grill by her landlord (probably because he didn’t get any of the steaks).In 1967, Paula married John Newman and became Paula Kiles Newman. Paula and John moved to John's hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. A year later, they purchased a home in Hamilton Township. Later that same year, Paula gave birth to her first son, John Joseph Newman, who was immediately nicknamed JJ by his grandmother Mary Kiles. In 1969, Paula celebrated the birth of her second son, James Patrick Newman. Paula began working on her master's degree in biochemistry shortly thereafter at Rutgers University, which she completed in 1974. After becoming an associate professor at Mercer Community College for a few years, Paula began working for the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. Here, she was responsible for evaluating the nutritional value of the meals served at senior programs throughout the state. Paula had a passion for ensuring seniors were fed healthy meals that met their nutritional needs. She worked for the Department of Community Affairs for over 30 years before retiring from the state of New Jersey in 2009.

In 1980, after years of unrelenting pressure from her sons (and Biscuit), Paula, who always loved dogs, adopted Casey the golden retriever/collie mix. Paula loved Casey, and Casey loved Paula. They remained inseparable from 1980 until 1994.

In 1983, Paula’s marriage to John ended, and she would never remarry. After the sale of their shared home, Paula purchased another home in Hamilton Township. When she moved into the house it did not have a refrigerator or finished upstairs. In the winter months, she used the garage as the refrigerator until she could save up enough money to responsibly purchase one. Both of her sons graduated from high school in 1987 and moved on to college. Paula enjoyed activities with friends in her free time, including square dancing, yoga, swimming, book club, and travel with friends. Many of the friends that she made while her children were in Scouts became lifelong friends, such as Marietta Violi and Pat Gray. From 1985 until 1993, Paula had a close friendship with Victor Wesloski. Paula became friends with Vic’s sister and remained friends even after his passing in 1993. Paula waited until John and James had graduated from college to finish the upstairs of her house.In 1997, Paula welcomed her first granddaughter, Cheyenne Elizabeth Newman, daughter of John Newman and his wife. Cheyenne’s middle name was chosen to honor Paula by including her middle name. The next year, Paula welcomed another granddaughter, Ianna Antoinette Newman. When her granddaughters were little Paula enjoyed visiting Michigan and reading to the girls using her puppet, a horse named Macaroni. On Christmas Eve, she had a tradition of reading Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree to the girls. In 2004, Paula celebrated the birth of her last grandchild, James and Melonie Newman’s daughter, Sara Gail Newman. When Paula’s son James lived in Honolulu Hawaii, Paula went to visit for Halloween and stayed until Easter. While staying in Hawaii with James's family, Paula enjoyed time snorkeling and going to the beach with Sara.

After Paula retired from the state of New Jersey she took many trips. She saw the Great Wall of China and Beijing. She went to visit Norway and Sweden with her friends and explored the parts of Eastern Europe that were behind the Iron Curtain when she took her trip in the 1960s. She saw Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. In addition, she took a cruise down the Danube River. Paula also enjoyed a trip to Ireland that included a visit to the Jameson Distillery and Blarney Castle, where she kissed the Blarney Stone. But most of all, she enjoyed having adventures with friends wherever she went. Even after retirement, Paula stayed active and in shape, doing yoga two days a week, participating in water aerobics one day, and swimming another day. She believed in eating healthy.

When Paula was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in 2021, she was determined to fight it. She moved out of her house in Hamilton Township and relocated to her son John’s house in West Chester, Ohio. After several months living with her son and daughter-in-law, she decided she missed having all of the friends and activities she was used to. In order to continue to have the vibrant social life she so missed, Paula decided to move into the Kenwood Senior Living Community. While living at the Kenwood she made many good friends. There she once again was able to participate in yoga, water aerobics, book club, and card making club. She enjoyed numerous trips to museums, parks, and art galleries. Her friends there noted that Paula was a kind, caring, and friendly person, making their lives richer by simply being herself.

Paula will be missed by her many friends, cousins, children, grandchildren, and sister. She is survived by her sister Ann Kiles McGill, her son John and daugher-in-law Lisa, and her son James and daughter-in-law Melonie, and her granddaughters Cheyenne, Ianna, and Sara. Finally, she would never have been caught dead pumping her own gas.

Mass will take place on July 19, 2025 at St. Monica's Catholic Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, with an Inurnment following directly after at Grandview Cemetery.