Patricia L. Stewart died Monday Feb. 17, 2025 at the age of 93 at the Good Shepherd Hospice House in Manhattan.
She was born and lived her early years in Missouri, teaching English in Richmond, MO after graduation from Central Missouri State College. A master’s degree from the University of Colorado followed, and then she began work on a Ph.D. at the University of Kansas where she met and married her husband, Donald. After one year there, they moved to Madison where she completed all the course work for a doctoral degree at the University of Wisconsin. At both KU and Wisconsin, she was employed as a teaching assistant. Following her schooling, she worked as a library assistant at the University of Wisconsin library. The couple spent summers during this time in Yellowstone National Park where Don was employed as a Naturalist in the National Park Service. Quarters there were primitive with no electricity or running water and as a result, she learned how to cook on a wood stove and manage food storage and cooking. The Yellowstone experience, coupled with long hikes in the back country and canyons of nearby Grand Teton National Park nourished her love of the outdoors.
Shortly after the birth of their first child, Ellen, the family moved to Champaign-Urbana where Don secured his first position at the University of Illinois. Pat briefly taught in the English department then worked at home for a typing agency after the birth of their second child, Mary. After six years in Illinois, the family moved to Kansas where Don joined the English Department at Kansas State University. She continued typing theses at home then returned to teaching at KSU from 1977 to 1994.
Music was always her passion. Pat studied piano and clarinet performance and served as an accompanist in the Music Department at Central Missouri State College. In Wisconsin, she studied viola and joined the Madison String Sinfonia for which she also wrote program notes for the performances. In Illinois and Kansas, she was an occasional member of string quartets and community orchestras.
Volunteerism was also very important to Pat. She helped with Girl Scouts, Sunday school and the Manhattan branch of Habitat for Humanity in its fledgling years. In addition, she took her dog Sparky for weekly visits to Stoneybrook Retirement Center for 12 years and delivered Meals on Wheels for 20 years.
Reading and writing were constant activities as well. Pat wrote frequent book reviews for the Manhattan Mercury, co-authored a textbook, The Eclectic Reader, and wrote The Life and Legacy of Fred Newton Scott from research left by her husband upon his death in 1992.
In 1977 she was nominated for the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Undergraduate teacher at KSU and received the William Stamey Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching award in 1989.
She was preceded in death by her husband Don, her sister and brother-in-law Kathleen and Alfred Strube, her brother Robert Pettepier, and her beloved dogs Sparky and Coco.
She is survived by her two daughters and their families: Ellen (Lauren) Baeten, Topeka, Abigail (Jake Ohlde) Wichita, Hannah (John) Quici, Theodore and Ruth Quici, Shoemakersville, PA, and John Baeten, Topeka; Mary(Jim) Lathrop, Junction City, Lisa Hulik, Julian and Payton Hulik, Blue Springs, MO, Jered (Chantel) Lathrop, Alayna, Malia and Jackson Lathrop, Overland Park as well as her sister-in-law, Eva Pettepier and numerous nieces and nephews.
Visitation will be on Thursday Feb. 27 from 6 to 8 pm at Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen funeral home.
A private family burial will be Friday, Feb. 28 at Sunrise Cemetery.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Nature Conservancy or Junction City Animal Shelter in care of Yorgensen-Meloan-Londeen Funeral Home, 1616 Poyntz Avenue, Manhattan, Kansas 66502. www.ymlfuneralhome.com