United States representative judge politician
He attended public and parochial schools there, graduating in 1918, and then went on to Saint Mary"s College in the same city. He graduated with an Bachelor of Laws degree from the law department of Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, in 1922.
Born in Sabinal, Kilday was the sixth child of Patrick Kilday, an immigrant from Ireland who was established as a merchant, and his Texas-born wife, Mary Tallant Kilday. While attending law school, Kilday was employed as a clerk for the United States Air Force in Washington, District of Columbia from 1918 to 1921 and as a law clerk for United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, in 1921 and 1922. He was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in San Antonio, Texas.
At one point, he went into practice with Harry Howard, who later became a judge and president of the San Antonio Bar Association.
Kilday himself served as first assistant district attorney of Bexar County, Texas from 1935 to 1938. He was elected by the Twentieth District of Texas as a Democrat to the Seventy-sixth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1939, until his resignation September 24, 1961, having been appointed a judge of the United States Court of Military Appeals by President John F. Kennedy.
Kilday served in this capacity until his death, in Washington, District of Columbia Kilday was followed in Congress by Henry Barbosa Gonzalez. He had been preceded by Maury Maverick.
He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery, Fort Myer, Virginia.
Kilday"s biographical page at a site commemorating veterans buried in Arlington notes: Two additional grandchildren followed his death, Fred K. Drogula and Elizabeth A.
