Patricia Ann Pedersen

Patricia Ann Pedersen died on August 27, 2022. She was 93.

Patty was born in Tacoma in 1929, the sixth of seven children born to James and Margaret Bannan, née Creedican. The family lived in a small house in the Lincoln District of Tacoma. She attended grade school at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and graduated from Aquinas Academy for Girls in 1947.

In her youth she worked in an ice cream store. The Bannans lived just a few blocks from her future husband Lester Thomas Pedersen who was a friend of her older brothers. The two corresponded while Les was stationed by the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II and, upon his discharge, were married at Holy Rosary church on New Year’s Eve in 1949. The couple then moved to Spokane where Les finished his engineering degree while Patty supported them by working in a bank.

They relocated to Massachusetts where Les worked until his company transferred him to the Hanford project near Richland in 1952. They drove across the country in an old car with their firstborn Tom and a washing machine. Patty bore the principal responsibility for raising six rambunctious children in Richland and steered them all successfully into adulthood. Patty was a Democrat and inclined to sympathy with the underdog. She enjoyed the company of her friends in the Tri-Cities and spent many summer weekends at the family boathouse on the Columbia River. She and Les made several memorable trips to Ireland in the 1970s and 80s, which fed her lifelong love for Irish people, literature, and music.

In retirement, Les and Patty moved to Manchester, WA and built a house on the beach of Puget Sound with views of Mount Rainier, Blake Island, and Seattle. Patty was glad to live nearer to her family and friends in Tacoma. She developed an interest in modern Native American art and made numerous trips with Les to the desert southwest in the family RV to add to her collection.

A gifted storyteller, Patty retained her prodigious memory until the end. She was a repository of entertaining facts and stories about the lively history of Tacoma and its people in the mid-20th century. She was an avid reader and a good driver.

She was predeceased by her husband Les who passed in 2004 and by her oldest daughter Rebecca Fitterer (David), her sisters Mary Muehlenbruch, Evelyn Hutchinson, Sister Margaret Bannan, OSF (Helen Louise Bannan), Elizabeth “Betty” Bader, and by her brothers William and James Bannan. Her brother-in-law and beloved friend Kenneth James “Bud” Pedersen passed in 2019.

Patty lives on in her children Lester Thomas (“Tom”) (Catherine Nanney), Kenneth James (Donna Johnson), Eileen Marie Pedersen (Dan Campbell), Mary Katherine Pedersen, and Patrick Dennis (Lisa Pedersen). She was blessed with grandchildren Krista Pedersen, Dylan, Erik and Carolynn Fitterer, James and John (“Max”) Pedersen, Patrick and Jonathan Hawn, Shaila and Sawyer Bolger, and Lily Pedersen. She has 14 great-grandchildren. The family is grateful for the care and concern shown Patty by her niece, Bridget Bannan-Wodnik, RN.

Patty will be interred at Calvary Cemetery in Tacoma on a date to be determined. She left instructions for a celebration of her life which is being arranged.