Inez Elizabeth Patch

Inez Elizabeth Patch, 73, of Gering, died Monday, March 19, 2007 at Regional West Medical Center. A memorial service will be held 2:00 p.m. Friday, March 23, 2007 at Dugan-Kramer Funeral Chapel in Scottsbluff with Pastor Guy Walton officiating. Cremation was held at Sunset Memorial Park. Interment of her ashes will be in Green Grove Cemetery near Hartsville, TN. Inez was born on May 5, 1933, in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, the eldest daughter of Lewis and Vernie (Hollifield) Cresawn. She graduated from Harris High School in Spruce Pine in 1951 with the completion of a program in pre-nursing at he local hospital. On September 1 of that year in Marion, NC she married Benjamin C. Patch, Jr. of Jefferson, New Hampshire who was serving in the US Navy at the time. They lived in Lakewood, NJ and Norfolk, VA during the remainder of his enlistment. He returned to the University of New Hampshire where Inez was employed as a lab technician in the poultry research department. She was later employed as a lab technician at the University of Missouri’s medical school hospital. Daughter Barbara Lorraine was born while they were in NH and son Robert Lewis was born in Missouri. Both currently reside in the states of their birth after living elsewhere for many years. Inez served as a Girl Scout leader in Wheaton, Maryland, Amarillo, Texas and Bangor, Maine and as a Cub Scout leader in Amarillo. In Bangor she was employed as librarian for a branch of the city library in a community center. She also taught adult education courses at the local high school in sewing and cake decorating. Back in Maryland again she worked with children with developmental disabilities and also served as head cashier for the Naval Officer’s Club in Washington, DC. Later she worked as an aide for school districts in Bismark, North Dakota and Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Inez knitted countless sweaters, afghans, baby blankets and mittens of the highest quality and taught others how to knit including her mother-in-law. She enjoyed her flower gardens, reading, bluegrass festivals and traveling in their motor home. She was able to visit forty-six states and all of the Canadian provinces and territories but one. It was said that she never met a stranger and she made friends where ever she went. She was dearly loved by her father and mother-in-law, the late Benjamin and Jane Patch. She is survived by her husband Benjamin of rural Gering; daughter Barbara (Charles) Legee and her son Nicholas of Kingston, NH and her daughter Hollie of Tampa, Florida; son Robert (Debbie) and his son Mathew of Kansas City, MO; sisters Jean (Willie) Bishop of Baltimore, MD and Diane (Dan) Keaton of Hilderbran, NC; sisters-in-law Mary Cresawn of Spruce Pine, NC and Jean Patch of Bethpage, TN; as well as several cousins, nieces and nephews and their children. She was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Thurman and Harold, sisters Delores and Margaret, brothers-in-law Oran Sullins and Stanley Patch, cousin L. C. Burnett and her father and mother-in-law.