Pat enjoyed generally good health and a reasonably full life into her 96th year, though balance issues had led her to fall several times in her later years, and the pandemic required her to be confined to her senior living community apartment in her final weeks.
She met her beloved husband, Warren, when they were still in middle school, married him at age 18 in 1942, and had son Mike10 months later. They lost their second child, Denise, to a birth injury and she had several miscarriages before finally giving birth to daughters Judy, Nancy and Debbie in rapid succession, in 1952, '54, and '55.
Pat was a perennial PTA president and Girl Scout leader, and always a lot of fun. She devoted herself to her kids, and never denied them a pet; the Sund household saw multiple Siamese cats come and go, as well as Sparky, a mischievous cockapoo, who was smitten with Pat and managed to escape the yard to follow her wherever she went: schools, the grocery store, and even church (where he came tearing up the aisle one Sunday morning). They also kept birds, rodents, rabbits and guinea pigs, ducks and chickens and a chipmunk Judy felt she just had to have.
Pat was a good cook, and during this time of restaurant closures and stay-at-home cooking every day, her children marvel that she cooked for a family of six day in and day out, for years on end, with only the occasional trip to Gordo’s for Mexican take-out or an extravagant meal at Jimmy Wong’s Golden Dragon.
She was an avid reader, a strict grammarian, and a killer bridge player (who never let her grandkids win at gin rummy). When her daughters were in high school, Pat went to college for the first time, and loved it. She earned a BA in sociology and then went on to get a master’s degree on her way to what she hoped would be a career in social work. Somewhat to her dismay she ended up becoming an IRS revenue agent, and was so good at her job (despite her professed hatred of mathematics) that she ended up being tapped to teach other agents the fine points of tax collection.
When her children were young, family vacations were spent camping, but when Pat and Warren hit middle age they decided to see the world. The two of them traveled widely in the '80s and '90s. In fact, they were traveling when Warren fell ill in 2000; he ended up in a faraway ICU, was brought home to San Diego by daughter Nancy (who’d gone to collect him and my mom), and died that night, at age 77.
Although Pat said she could not live without the man to whom she’d been married for 58 years, she managed to pick herself up, buy and move to a new home, continue her far-flung travels, and find people with whom to laugh and play bridge. She lived to see four grandkids marry, hold six great-grandkids and dance at grandson Harry’s bar mitzvah.
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