Patricia Gayle Ferrell Pate

She graduated from Andrew Jackson High School in 1959. Soon after, she met the love of her life, Edward Olin Pate, and although he had graduated from rival Lee High School, she married him anyway, in 1960. They had fond memories from those early days of attending the Jackson-Lee football game together when it was a big annual event in the Gator Bowl on Thanksgiving, and of going on Sunday drives around the countryside. Though their nearly 64 years together brought many challenges, they were inseparable through their last days.

Her family was everything to her. She was a loving and kind mother who devoted herself to her four children full-time while they were young. She taught her children to read at a very young age and was an active volunteer as they pursued their interests in school and beyond. She was a Cub Scout leader, a Girl Scout leader and a high school band parent. And no one has ever made Southern biscuits that could rival hers.

She was a member of North Jacksonville Baptist Church from the late 1950s through the late 1970s and then a member of Murray Hill Baptist Church, where she volunteered in the church’s library for several years.

After raising her children, she worked as a clerk for the Duval County Public Schools. She was also a member of the American Business Women’s Association Orange Park Charter Chapter, where she served on the board as secretary and as vice president.

She loved music, especially classical music and traditional hymns. She had grown up studying piano with her mother, who was a piano teacher, singing in church choirs, and playing flute in her school bands. She sang to her young children, and encouraged them in their own musical studies.

She pursued genealogy with a passion. She had been a member of the Jacksonville Genealogical Society for many years. She and Edward took road trips around the Southeast to rummage through archives in courthouses and local museums, tracking down ancestors on both sides, in the days before such research could be done online. She organized family reunions. She passed that love of family history, and of course a trove of documents and clues she had collected, down to her children and grandchildren.

She is survived by her husband, Edward Olin Pate; their children, Edward O. Pate, Jr. (Emily), Lynne Pate Nagaraja, Lance Pate (Amanda), and Elizabeth Pate Murphy (Keith Secrest); 11 grandchildren, Brandon Pate, Christopher Murphy, Zay Pate, Nayan Nagaraja, Rohan Nagaraja, Maxx Secrest, Shelby Secrest, Colin Reece-Pate, Anderson Reece-Pate, Taylor Pate and Cameron Pate; her sister, Jeannette Ferrell Maraffi (Fritz); and many other relatives and friends. She was predeceased by her parents, Roger Ernest Ferrell and Frances Lucille Ratlieff Ferrell Register; her brother, Dr. Ernest Ferrell, and her stepfather, George B. Register.

Visitation will be held Friday, July 26, from 6-8 p.m. at Hardage-Giddens Greenlawn, and a graveside service will be held Saturday, July 27, at 10 a.m. at Greenlawn Cemetery, officiated by her cousin Steve Leggett. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Midway Museum in Midway, Georgia:

https://www.themidwaymuseum.org/