She was born Amy Melissa Moore on April 28, 1972, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Soon after, her father, John, a physicist, and mother, Ann, a teacher, moved the family to the burgeoning Silicon Valley. Two years later, they moved north and settled in the Oak Hills neighborhood in Beaverton, Oregon, where the family has lived ever since, enjoying a back-deck view of the nation’s best neighborhood fireworks show.
Amy attended Mrs. Woods’ first Kindergarten class at Oak Hills Church, Oak Hills Elementary, and Meadow Park Middle School before moving on to Sunset High School, where she played soccer and lettered in theater.
Amy attended Connecticut College where she graduated Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with honors in English. She was also awarded the Sarah Ensign Cady Memorial prize for reading English literature aloud in a clear, meaningful way. She was involved in theater, including directing a production of Samuel Beckett’s Rockaby. Amy listened to the Stone Roses and served as a residential assistant in her dorm, which she swore wasn’t because of the private-suite bathtub. It was in a college theater production that Amy met her husband-to-be, Justin Paterson, when both were cast in Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano.
In the summer between her junior and senior years, Amy interned at the Pearl Theater Company in Manhattan and lived alone in a sublet flat in Hell’s Kitchen. During her final year of college, Amy returned home to Portland for the summer and fall to take classes at Portland State University and work part-time at Willamette Week.
After graduating college in 1994, Amy returned to Portland to work at Portland Opera in fundraising and marketing. Two years later, she began a life-long career in public relations at LANE PR, where she became a vice president and helped grow the firm from four employees to more than 30. During those years she also worked on meaningful nonprofit causes, including co-chairing Taste of the Nation, a culinary event that raises money to fight hunger.
Justin eventually joined Amy in Portland and the two were married at Portland’s White House Bed and Breakfast in May 1998. They celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary this past spring. The couple had more than two beautiful decades of exploring Oregon, stripping wallpaper, cross-country skiing, visiting Maine, pulling weeds, drinking wine with family and friends, and parenting. Their red-headed son, Jonah, joined them in October 2003. Three is a magic number.
In the summer of 2006 Amy was first diagnosed with breast cancer. The following year she attended more than 144 medical appointments, all while raising a toddler. Because of that experience, she and a friend cofounded My Little Waiting Room, a nonprofit that provides free drop-in child care to families at Providence St. Vincent and Providence Portland hospitals. To date, those two locations have supported nearly 50,000 child visits. Through her dedication, Amy was honored nationally and locally through recognition from L’Oréal’s Women of Worth, 1000 Points of Light Tribute award, Avon’s Hello Tomorrow Fund, Kids II Pink Power Mom, and Portland Monthly magazine’s Light a Fire award.
In the fall of 2012, Amy’s breast cancer returned, and she retired from LANE PR but remained on its advisory board. A few years later, she enrolled in Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program where she furthered her passion for losing herself in books, scribbling notes on tiny slips of paper, and writing poetry, essays, and nonfiction. She graduated with her MFA in the winter of 2018. She also served on the Beaverton Education Foundation during this time to support her son Jonah’s education.
This past summer, the family traveled to London and fed her obsession with the Royal Family and its weddings and jewels. She loved cats, especially her own (Bruce and Willis); basketball; improvising lyrics to songs on road trips; creating the perfect campsite; cooking; Pilates; tea; Tom Petty; sitting quietly at her desk; and soft-serve ice cream cones, which she would sometimes deliver to the family in the sticky cup holders of her car. More than anything, she loved being a mom.
She was and will always be cherished by her many longtime and loyal friends from all phases of her life, and beloved by her family who were with her at the end.
Amy is survived by her husband, Justin, and her son, Jonah Paterson; her parents, Ann and John Moore; her in-laws, John and Dean Paterson; her sister, Pam, her brother-in-law, Greg, and her nephew and nieces, Cody, Emma, and Kyra Grater; and her brother-in-law, Adam and his wife, Diana Paterson. She will be deeply missed by her East coast Johnson and Carroll cousins.
A memorial service will be held in the spring of 2019. Those wishing to donate in Amy’s honor are invited to give to My Little Waiting Room at https://appsor.providence.org/giving/?foundations=8
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