OBITUARY: Barbara Stevens Patterson

Barbara Stevens Patterson, 80, of Sarasota and formerly of Longboat Key, died April 27. She was the wife of the late Longboat Key Mayor and retired U.S. Army Major Gen. James “Jim” Patterson.

Born Sept. 5, 1930, in Boston, she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Her husband’s military career spanned 28 years, during which the Pattersons lived in 23 different locations. In 1976, while living in the Washington, D.C., area, the Pattersons drove to Florida, looking for a place where they could bring their sailboat, and discovered Longboat Key. They later purchased a home in Country Club Shores, which was the first true home they had together.

Mrs. Patterson was involved with volunteer and charity work with the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross and Project Literacy. She enjoyed teaching preschool and kindergarten and tutoring children with special needs. She was an avid tennis player at the Longboat Key Club and Resort and Bird Key Yacht Club and enjoyed traveling, cooking, sailing, her involvement with the Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumnae Association and spending time with her grandchildren.

According to family members, Mrs. Patterson loved dancing in the kitchen, midnight swims, writing poetry, walking the family dog late at night for exercise and riding her bike. She is remembered by family members as someone who led by example and put others before herself.

“She never spoke unkindly about anyone and was always the optimist,” her daughter, Leslie Scott, said. “She was a loyal, devoted, loving patient wife to my father … She did whatever she had to do to take care of all of us. It was her top priority, and we all benefited from it. She left this world a better place having been in it.”

Mrs. Patterson was preceded in death by her husband, Jim. She is survived by daughters Carol Patterson, of Fort Worth, Texas, Linda Patterson Italiano, of Tampa, and Leslie Scott, of Rolling Hills, Calif.; brother, Kent Stevens, of Purceville, Va.; and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 7, at Toale Brothers Funeral Home, Colonial Chapel, 40 N. Orange Ave., in Sarasota. Burial will be alongside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va., at a later date.

Memorial donations can be made in Mrs. Patterson’s honor to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Attn: Tribute Gifts, P.O. Box 780, New York, N.Y., 10008.