She was born on Feb. 23, 1935 in Chicago, Ill.
How do you describe the life of your best friend? Her thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. Reading all kinds of books, traveling to all kinds of countries, taking all kinds of college classes, researching the Merck manual and diagnosing all kinds of illnesses. There was nothing that didn’t interest her and was able to converse knowledgeably about everything. She even had a psychic link with her children, once awakening in the middle of the night to rescue her daughter from monoxide poisoning of a failed gas furnace pilot light. This life story is how it all started:
Her parents were geologists traveling the world testing rock samples for Standard Oil. Their careers cut short after getting malaria in Bogota, Columbia. They returned to William’s parents in Chicago to start a family. Born during the depression were sisters Francis and Marianne, Pat came along in 1935. When she was 3 years old, her mother died in childbirth with her brother Bill.
The four siblings were being raised by the wealthy grandparents, becoming quite spoiled with all the attention. Her Dad remarried and moved the family out to the country. Crete, Illinois was 20 miles from town and isolated from the polio epidemic of the time. The stepmother, Ellen, made sure they got their schooling and made each child play musical instruments. The 3 pianos were pushed together where they practiced and had piano wars.
A drunk driver took her father’s life in 1949. Having learned cartography from her father, Pat went to work drawing maps at the age of 14. Her guardian, Uncle Paul, sent Pat off to the University of Wisconsin when she turned 17. Studying genetic research in the Agricultural Department for 2 years, she met Robert Reuter. They married in 1955, William was born in 1956 while they were still in college. Moving to Ladysmith, Wisconsin the following year to be a county extension agent in central Wisconsin. Suzi and Karl were born during the 2 years they lived there.
Jon and Robert were born at the Viroqua Hospital just 20 miles from the dairy farm in La Farge. 300 acres of hills, trees, pastures, and trout streams. In the winter there was 4 foot snowfalls and 12 foot snowdrifts, frozen water pipes and a cold path to the outhouse. Bathing children in a galvanized wash tub in front of a wood cookstove during 40 degree below blizzards is fun only for so long. The next move was out west. The Reuter family loaded up the horses, 5 screaming kids, most in diapers, and began driving through the upper Midwest to Scappoose, Oregon.
Making a home for 5 wild children in an old apple shed, there was no shortage of adventures to be had. The root cellar flood, the chicken lice epidemic, the horse kicking, bicycle disasters, the rubber hose incident, and plenty of apple throwing wars. There was also apple cider pressings, great neighbors, movies and swim lessons for rewards when not in the middle of mayhem.
The next move to Vancouver put us along the Columbia River, and one year later to a 40 acre farm in Ridgefield, Wash. It rained so much the grass the cows ate was like eating green Kool-Aid. Pat was kept busy controlling me mob plus the neighbor children’s 4-H projects. Nubian goats, chickens, pheasants, pigs, sheep, milking cows, walnuts, pine cones, and stacking hay in a huge red barn.
In order to start a dairy out of ever falling rain, Pat and Bob moved to Hermiston, Oregon in 1970 to an original homestead on Agnew Road west of town. All her children lived their high school years in Hermiston where Pat made sure they learned there was more to life than just farming. She introduced them to snow skiing, swimming, camping, hiking, sports, a well rounded childhood. There was plenty of work. She helped with the chores and all of the various summer jobs. Picking strawberries, beans, cucumbers, watermelons, feeding the cows, milk bottles for the calves, bailing and bring in the hay, even building the central irrigation pivots out in the fields.
Pat saved her children’s lives more times than we can remember. There were car rollings, cow trampling, boating accidents, ice skating head injuries, bicycle toe surgeries, motorcycle scrapings, beer keggers in the back 40, police raids, hospital visits, 10 years of teenage madness. She lived through it all with great aplomb.
She jumped off the rocks into the river at Sand Station, road the inner tubes down the irrigation canals to the falls, climbed half Dome at Yosemite, cross country skied the Blue Mountains, hiked and camped in the high alpine lakes of the Wallowa Mountains, backpacked the Rocky Mountains in the golden aspen leaves of autumn, kissed the Blarney Stone, and soaked in the hot springs of the Sierra Nevada’s in California. After all her kids moved away from home in 1991 to 1993, Pat and Bob were dairy consultants for the Peace Corps, visiting Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala. They saw Macchu Picchu, Mayan pyramids, and Aztec temples. Ate local foods, hiked in the Andes, lived with the local people in their homes. They taught the farmers how to raise and market their dairy products for a better life.
In 2000 Pat met Gerald Walker and proceeded to see the World, Ireland, England, Scotland, Europe, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Finland, Sweden, Canada, America, Alaska, China, Coasta Rica, Panama, and her home away from home, Hawaii. Pat loved her boisterous and fun family reunions, seeing all the children’s children. She was an inspiration and grandma to our extended family, mentoring other less fortunate friends and their children. They would come to the farm with its large green lawns, gazebo, and tall trees and talk to Pat about their troubles. She thought nothing of hopping in the car and visiting her kids where ever they lived. What an amazing life. We will miss her. See you on the other side.
Please sign the online guest book at burnsmortuaryhermiston.com.
Burns Mortuary of Hermiston is in care of arrangements.
