Patricia Dorothy Marion Mutch

Pat was born January 6, 1927, in Big Valley, Alberta, where her father, P.F. Padberg, worked for the Canadian National Railway. Pat grew up in Sioux Lookout, in Northern Ontario. She also lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Pat was a feminist, and a natural environmentalist, long before those words were commonly used. Determined to have her own career, she attended pharmaceutical college at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, when most of her fellow students were both male and much older than she was. She worked part-time as a pharmacist for most of the years that she lived in Canada, in Whitehorse, Vancouver and at McGill and Orme in Victoria, while also raising her three children.

After graduating from U of M and completing her apprenticeship, she took a year off to travel to Europe, accompanied only by a close friend, Marion Lewis. To bicycle through post-war Europe was an adventurous and courageous thing for two young women to do, but they were warmly greeted and made many friends. Pat particularly loved Italy.

In the early fifties, after returning to Canada, Pat travelled to Whitehorse, Yukon, where her sister Lois and brother-in-law, Rex Terpening had settled, and accepted a job as a pharmacist. It was in Whitehorse that she met Jim Mutch, a younger friend of Rex's. They fell in love and married, and soon after moved to Kamloops, BC, where all three children were born. In 1958 they returned to Whitehorse.

Jim's career progress with Canadian Pacific Airlines required frequent moves. Pat and the family moved from the Yukon to Vancouver in 1962, and from there to Victoria, B.C. in 1965. In 1972, Pat and Jim began their international adventures, first settling in Honolulu, Hawaii for three years, then to Los Angeles for four years, where she found a lovely home on a hill in the now-trendy area of Silver Lake. This house, remodelled, was later featured in an architectural magazine. From Los Angeles, they next moved to Hong Kong, living in a spacious condominium in Repulse Bay, just across from the International School.

After four years in Hong Kong, they returned to Canada, first to Edmonton, Alberta, then to Richmond, BC, and finally to Ottawa, Ontario, when Jim accepted an appointment to the National Transportation Agency. In 2003, after Jim's untimely death, Pat moved to Abbotsford, where she would be close to Patti.

The one constant in all these years of wandering was the island in Gun Lake at Minaki, in Northern Ontario. Originally purchased as a wedding gift for her sister Lois and then by her parents, P.F. and Gladys, Pat and Jim bought the island from Gladys when P.F. passed away in the early 70's. No matter where they lived, for almost forty years Pat and Jim returned to the island every summer. In the sixties, her job provided her the flexibility to spend all summer at the island with her three children, from the end of school to the Labor Day weekend. All three children still have property at Minaki, and Pat's grandchildren are now the fourth generation to fall in with love with this special place.

In Hong Kong, Pat decided to pursue a lifelong passion, painting. On the advice of a friend, she took dry brush lessons and soon become a talented amateur artist. She painted the things she loved: flowers and plants, landscapes and her family. In Ottawa, she was an active member of the Bell's Corner Art Guild, with some modest commercial success. Many family members and close friends will remember Pat through the watercolours still displayed in their homes. Seeing her work on family walls, many friends requested special commissions of their own, which she was always pleased to deliver.

Pat maintained closeness to the land all her life. She was a gifted and passionate gardener. Everywhere she lived, she could spend hours happily landscaping, planting, pruning and weeding. In particular, she tended the garden every summer on the island at Minaki, where her passion and hard work is still very much evident in the rock gardens, tiger lilies, roses and white pine trees she planted and so carefully nurtured.

In Victoria in the sixties, she began to recycle and to compost, she carried that discipline through the rest of her life; a part of her natural connection to the environment. She was also a good cook, original and willing to experiment, though she professed later in life to never have loved cooking! Her children, and her grandchildren, still follow some of her best recipes, written in her careful hand on 3 by 5 recipe cards.

Pat's love of gardening and painting also showed through in her sense of style. She was a modest person, never given to drawing attention to herself, but always dressed well with an innate sense of flair.

When her grandchildren were born, Pat did not want to be referred to as "grandmother.” In characteristic style, she asked that she be called "Amah", which was used in Hong Kong as a polite and respectful term referring to a domestic servant who combines the roles of children's nurse and maid. Henceforth, she was known and loved by her children and grandchildren as "Amah".

Pat worked hard all her life, as a professional, as a partner to Jim and as a mother to her three children. She lived a modest and healthy life. Thus it seemed particularly cruel and unfair when, in her early seventies, she began to show the signs of early Alzheimer's disease. Despite good medical care, her mental health sadly deteriorated to the point that she had to enter an extended care facility in Abbotsford. Her children, grandchildren and close friends greatly regretted the early decline of such a vibrant person.

Pat is survived by her three children, Randy Mutch and his wife Valerie Barr, Greg Mutch, and Patti Bradley and her husband Chris Bradley, as well as her grandchildren, Walker and Ian Bradley and James and Hilary Mutch. She is predeceased by her husband, James Daryl Mutch, her sister, Lois Sexton, and her beloved first grandchild, Jillian Bradley.

A Celebration of Patricia's Life will take place at Minaki, Ontario in the summer of 2017

Arrangements under the direction of Woodlawn Funeral Home, Abbotsford, BC.