Pat Schaad died peacefully Monday morning, February 15 in her home in Williams, two blocks from where she grew up.
Born in Williams on February 19, 1924, she was the daughter of Gilbert Allen and Nellie Long Allen. She was raised by her grandmother, Emma Allen due to the death of her mother at birth. For the first six years of her life she was raised in the hills on a farm on the Old Wilbur Road just past the Mountain House. She began her education in the first grade in the newly build Williams Elementary School in which 30 years later she would teach. Every summer growing up she and her grandmother would spend a month in San Francisco, with Emmas sister Ida Brown a strong, opinionated, spirited woman who influenced Pat for all her life. Growing up in Williams at that time was oddly idyllic. It was essentially a farming village of a little over 700 people who all new one another. It was the depression , everyone was more or less poor, the war was on, and there were forged life-long family connections that still remain today.
After high school she rode the 5:30 commuter bus to Yuba Junior College where she became the first female Student Body President. After Yuba College she worked in the Court House in Colusa and waited for her fiancé, Leroy Schaad, to come home from the war.
They had met in the Williams Community Church and got married there and both remained members until there deaths, Pat had been a member 90 years. They built a house on the Schaad Ranch and remained living there 51 years. They had one son, Allen, and were active in community and social organizations all their lives. Pat, being social, particularly enjoyed Eastern Star and being the Rainbow Girls Worthy Advisor. She participated in the County Scholarship Committee for over 20 years and her bridge club has been going for over 70 years and now continues on without her.
In 1956 Pat started commuting Chico State and received a teaching certificate and began teaching in the Williams Elementary School. She loved teaching and her students enjoyed her. She reveled in the experience. It was the perfect job. She kept life-long connections with many of her students, complementing their successes because they had been HER students! She started teaching the first grade and after years of teaching a variety of grades, she began teaching for Yuba College Extension in Colusa. Amazingly enough she did this for 20 years. Through community outreach, teaching, relations and school connections it seemed that she knew everyone in the county. She and Leroy had 500 guests at their 40th wedding anniversary.
Unfortunately, seventeen years ago, after 58 years of marriage to a man who adored her, Pat became a widow. At that time she took up TaiChi, traveling to Willows for 15 years to participate. She volunteered to teach English and reading to foreign students through the Colusa County Library, taught an adult Sunday School Class and joined two more bridge clubs. She became move involved in the life of her grandson, and those of her great-grandaughters who called her Gigi.
She served wonderfully as a wife, role-model and teacher. My father always said, ” If you think shes something now, you should have known her when she was young!
Pat was preceded in death by her husband Leroy. She is survived by her son, Allen (Tammy), Grandsons, Christian (Esther), Matt Gish, and three great grand-daughters, Faith, Clementine and Violet.
In lieu of flowers please donate to Williams Community Church, The Sacramento Valley Museum or the Williams Cemetery Fund.
A graveside ceremony will be held February 23 at 11AM. A covid conscious lunch will follow at Pats house. –
ARRANGEMENTS ARE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
MCNARY-MOORE FUNERAL SERVICE – FD-410 ¢ (530) 458-2111
02/18/2021 ¢ WPR #2021-0219