Patricia M. Howard

Published 12:37 pm Friday, August 30, 2024

Patricia M. Howard

November 10, 1926 — August 15, 2024

Patricia Marie Moore Howard (known as Pat or Patty) was born to Charlcia Mendenhall Moore and Cecil C. Moore, of Central Oregon pioneer stock, on November 10, 1926, in Bend, Oregon. She attended Kenwood Grade School and Bend High, where she was a member of Pep Club and was a Lava Bears cheerleader, graduating in 1944. Pat was the oldest of three children, having a younger brother Phil and a much younger sister Nancy.

During WWII, she joined the war effort by working at a shipyard in Portland, where she contracted Scarlet Fever and was among the first to receive penicillin injections for this bacterial disease (she never forgot the experience!).

She then worked at the Bend Memorial Clinic until she married fellow classmate J. Reed Howard on April 10, 1948, following his return from the Navy. After completing his Electrical Engineering degree at Washinton State College, (now WSU), they ultimately moved to their “home place” in Mesa, AZ., where Reed worked for Motorola Aerospace. Pat became interested in genealogy through her membership in the Latter-Day Saints’ Church and has always been the go-to person for family history. She also served a term as President of the Women’s Relief Society, LDS, for her ward. Patty was a resilient, resourceful, and welcoming human being.

The marriage produced three daughters: Shannon Marie (Hal Jordan, Cottonwood, AZ), Lucinda Ann (Jay Reynolds, Scottsdale, AZ), and Melinda Jane (Jim Wood, New Braunfels, TX), and later 9 grandchildren (and 15 great-grandchildren).

After Reed’s retirement, they went north to Cottonwood, AZ, out of the traffic and heat of the Valley of the Sun. After Reed’s death in 2013, Patty moved to The Cottonwood Village retirement home in 2014. For her 90th birthday, her family gave her a huge party. Unfortunately, because of the Covid pandemic, she then spent nearly all of 2020-2021 in semi-isolation. In declining health, in January 2024 after hospitalizations, she moved to Haven Health Care and ultimately hospice care, where she died on August 15, 2024.

In addition to her daughters and their families, she leaves behind her sister Nancy (Bothell, WA) and countless cousins, nieces and nephews. Her brother Phil died in 1985.

Pat Howard, devoted to her family, enjoyed gardening, watching hummingbirds, reading pioneer histories, sleuthing out ancestors, building family trees, and answering questions about “the old days.” While her parents lived, she frequently returned to Central Oregon to help with the wild plum patch harvest and to visit her aunts, uncles, and cousins. Patty was a member of the Jefferson County Historical Society and the Deschutes County Pioneers’ Association. She was a life-long Democrat and proud of it.