Phyllis Ilene Patterson

Phyllis Ilene Patterson, long-time resident of Montgomery, died on July 14, 2019, at the age of 99 in Norman, Oklahoma.  Phyllis was born on May 31, 1920, to Walter Thorp and Emma Mae Bennett in Fayette County, Iowa.  She spent a majority of her childhood on the Iowa farm before her family moved to southern Wisconsin where she graduated from Baraboo High School in Baraboo and went on to get her teaching degree at Sauk County Teachers College.  In 1943, she married Murray Patterson who was stationed at Truax Field, Madison, WI, as a member of the Army Air Corps.  They would be united for 66 years until his death in 2009.  In 1945, they had a son, Gary Patterson.  In 1953, they moved to Montgomery which was Murray’s home town.  For several years, she worked as a housewife, the norm for that era, but with the departure of their son for college, she began a second career of some 20 plus years as a payroll clerk in the Alabama State Department of Health, retiring in 1984.  In 2007, she and Murray relocated to the Oklahoma City area to be near their son and daughter-in-law.

Phyllis was preceded in death by her husband, Murray Patterson.  She is survived by her son, Gary and his wife Elizabeth Patterson of Moore, OK; granddaughter, Michelle Patterson and her longtime partner David Rafferty of Washington, DC; and grandson, Todd Patterson and his wife Nichole of Oklahoma City, OK.

Phyllis will be buried beside her husband, Murray, at Greenwood Serenity Memorial Gardens in Montgomery.