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Randy Purcell called this morning. Pat Perry, his wife of 40 years and our classmate, died last Saturday, May 8th, 2015. He found her Saturday morning on the couch with her head leaning back and eyes closed. There will be a brief ceremony on Thursday in Blanding. She did not want a funeral. They had one child together. He brought three kids to the marriage. Her current email is pat_purcell@frontier.com, which he will access. If you have any other memories of Pat, please write comments on this website. They were planning to come to the 55th PHS Class of 1960 at the Riverside CC on Thursday, July 2, 2015.
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LaDonna Houtz (Rawlings)
Pat and I were good friends in our junior high and high school years. We were in the same ward and had fun in 4H, mutual, sleepovers, picking cherries, and just hanging out. She excelled in everything. She was fast, accurate, and smart. She was even smart enough to get me through algebra (no easy task).
She had her choice of scholarships and went on to Utah State. She encouraged me to apply for a scholarship also, and I was fortunate enough to get a small one to BYU. Our paths then separated and we didn't see each other for many years. I think the only time I saw her was when Norma Jean Terry Killpack and I went to see her after Pat's daughter was born.
Years later when we reconnected for lunch, we reminisced about visiting her grandparents farm in Mapleton and "writing loveletters in the sand" in the irrigation ditch. We remembered many good times we had spent together, among them, singing and dancing with Elvis, etc.
In her later years she would contact me when she and Randy came to Provo for doctors' appointments. They were both pretty frail at that time, and we had some serious, heartfelt discussions, filled with tears and remembrances. We would also talk on the phone occasionally. She also expressed to me that she did not want a funeral or a newspaper obituary. I told her to promise me she would have one of her brothers contact me when she did pass away. I did, however, hear about her passing from our wonderful Provo High 1960 Class notification.
I think it was only about a month after she passed away that Randy joined her.