Necrology
Abby Ann Patterson K'72
Feb. 12, 1951-Dec. 6, 2020
For some years after she graduated from Kirkland, Abby Ann Patterson K’72 traveled and explored her love for learning, then settled in Martha’s Vineyard, where she married and started a family farm.
In 1995, she would follow her devotion to helping others and move to the Boston area to enroll in the Boston College social work master’s program. Becoming a social worker was her long-held passion; her family said she always placed others before herself.
Patterson died on Dec. 6, 2020, at her home in Vineyard Haven, Mass. She was born on Feb. 12, 1951, in Princeton, N.J., the daughter of Suzanne Virden Patterson and Henry Patterson II. Patterson graduated from Stuart Country Day School and entered Kirkland, where she focused her studies on biology.
She spent her first years after leaving College Hill satisfying her interest in learning, for instance working as a research assistant in the veterinary school at Washington State University and in labs at the Duke University Medical Center.
In 1981, she married and started a family farm in West Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard, where she raised sheep and poultry. Her civic work included serving on and chairing the West Tisbury personnel board and the Island Children’s School board.
After earning her master’s degree, she worked with local organizations that helped veterans, homeless people, and children, including the West Roxbury Veterans Association Medical Center, Bowdoin Manor, Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, and Pelham House in Newton. She advocated for the elderly as the clinical director of homecare for Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services.
Her family remembers Patterson as a devoted lover and rescuer of animals, both wild and domestic, and an avid reader who loved a good book with a warm cup of tea.
Survivors include three children, two brothers, a sister, and nieces and nephews.
