Helena Fletcher Patch

Helena Shreve Fletcher Patch, 94, died Tuesday, April 14, 2020 in Fairfax, VA. She and her twin brother, Douglas Morse Fletcher, were born October 20, 1925 in New York, NY, to loving parents, Col. Robert Howe Fletcher Jr and Lorraine Annette Murphy Fletcher. Helena attended Potomac School before graduating from Oldfields School in MD and Garland Junior College in MA. Following her parents’ brief Washington, DC and Ft. Benning stations, her father was appointed as the Military Attache to Spain and Portugal in the early 1930s which cemented Helena’s lifelong enthusiastic love of travel. After the family’s return from Europe to home bases of Washington, DC and Leesburg, VA, she spent happy years filled with good memories.

Helena married her late husband of 56 years, Lt. William Ashbrook Patch, upon his graduation from the Class of 1948, United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. Both the bride and the bridegroom were descended from long lines of military service people, and it was through these constantly intersecting life paths that they had met.

Following their 1948 marriage, they embarked on a 30-year career of military service together. Helena focused her impressive energies, her can-do and practical attitude, her love of adventure, her irrepressible sense of joie de vivre, her deeply patriotic love of this country, her insatiable curiosity, and her devotion to their children to the support of her beloved husband as he advanced through the military ranks. Bill retired in 1978 as a Major General.

Over the years, she followed him to Ft. Riley & Ft. Leavenworth, KS; Japan; Germany; France; Colorado Springs, CO; Norfolk, VA; Ft. Bragg, NC; Carlisle, PA; Leesburg, VA; Washington, DC three times; Ft. Benning, GA; Seoul, Korea; and lastly Ft. Dix, NJ where she was the wife of the Commander. She was a dedicated member, volunteer, and leader of numerous civic and religious pursuits at each base location, all the while bravely raising three boys and graciously performing the hospitality duties of a military officer’s wife, which included managing the family during Bill’s combat tours. Each time they would arrive at a new place, Bill would go to the office, and Helena would go about making their new residence into a home, starting, as she used to say, by draping a colorful cloth over a trunk as a coffee table. While they were stationed at the Air Force Academy, she even went for her own pilot’s license!

Their retirement years were spent in Marco Island, FL, Leesburg, VA, and finally Potomac, MD. Throughout, Helena continued to travel the globe, riding camels in Egypt, floating in Russian river boats, cruising the Indian Ocean and more. She volunteered at Sibley Hospital & the DC Red Cross Chapter; was a member of the Capital Speakers, Army Navy, and Sulgrave Clubs; and faithfully worked in the Altar Guild and other activities as a parishioner of St. Francis Episcopal Church in Potomac. Helena was an unabashed Anglophile, French-speaker, theater-goer, book club joiner, and garden club enthusiast. She will be sorely missed as the loving, entertaining, generous, exciting, and devoted wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and friend that she was.

She leaves two of her sons, Alexander McCarrel Patch (Nancy Atkinson Patch) of Potomac, MD and Robert Douglas Patch (Patricia Stevens Patch) of Greenwich, CT, and her five grandchildren: Julia McCarrel, William Ashbrook III, Emily King, Douglas Fletcher, and Madeline Murphy Patch. Helena was predeceased by her brother, her husband, and one son, William Ashbrook Patch Jr. She will be interred with her husband near the Old Cadet Chapel at West Point in September at a private family service. It is requested that any desired memorial donations in her name be made to St. Francis Episcopal Church, 10033 River Road, Potomac, MD 20854 or to the National Military Family Assoc., 2800 Eisenhower Ave., Suite 250, Alexandria, VA 22314. Arrangements by Gawler’s Funeral Home.