Mrs. Patricia Ann Hofstad Sunseri, a Tallahassee painter, graphic artist, and long an editor with Florida and local associations, died Saturday, April 17, 2021 after a prolonged illness. She died one day short of her 85th birthday, and exactly four months to the day after her beloved husband of 61 years, Sev Sunseri.
A native of Beaumont, TX, Patti and her husband met at the local newspaper where they both worked, The Beaumont Enterprise, she in the classified department, he in editorial. In her youth, she was active in Rainbow Girls, becoming Worthy Advisor, the same position her daughter reached 20 years later in Tallahassee.
She moved to Tallahassee in 1965 when her husband was named to an editorial position at the Capital News Bureau of the Florida Times Union.
She began working in association magazines with the Florida League of Cities, the Florida Engineering Society, and eventually the Association of Florida Counties, all in Tallahassee. She later worked as Director of Marketing with Westminster Oaks Retirement Community, but eventually she returned to association magazines.
She had an entrepreneurial spirit: As a graphic artist and editor, she designed and ran City Escort magazine. With her love of painting that she inherited from her father, she picked up her brushes after her retirement. She exhibited and sold at the art store called Imagine That and small art festivals. Most of her art pieces were paintings of beach scenes, many of them painted on sand dollars, of the beautiful Florida beaches that kept her and her husband long time residents of the state they came to love.
Survivors include her daughter, Toni Sunseri of Willmington, NC; two sons, Steve Sunseri and Ken Sunseri, both living in Richmond, VA; sister, Peggy Haizlip of Vidor, TX; two grandsons, (Ariel and Michael), and a granddaughter, (Emma).
In consideration of the pandemic, Patti will be laid to rest in a private ceremony in Tallahassee, FL.
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