Just shy of two months ago, i noted in a brief post , that my sister-in-law, Patsy Boggs, passed away on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. She was 83 years old. This Saturday, July 18, we will have a modest celebration of her life with family and friends. i think she will like that.

Patsy remains a champion in my mind. Sammy Davis, Junior and Frank Sinatra singing “My Way,” were singing about themselves on a completely different level, not of Patsy and other folks like her. Patsy did it her way.

i will not attempt to catalogue her history because her brother, Danny; her two boys, Bill and Mike; and her sister Maureen who happens to be my wife; and her cousin, Tim Cook have more accurate and longer memories of Ray and Pat Boggs’ oldest child. i will attempt to give you my impression of the kind of person Patsy was.

Patsy was an intelligent, talented woman who loved people. She was also stubborn and determined to do it her way.

Patsy was a looker, strikingly beautiful, and chased by the boys through high school. She attended San Diego State for a while, a year i think, and decided it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

So, she quit and struck out on her own.

As many women did in those days of the early 1960s, she took one of the few jobs available for the female gender with a high school degree.

Patsy became a waitress. It was not a temporary job. It was, for about fifty years, her career. And she was very, very good at it. If you think about all of the television series and movies about waitresses, you can imagine Patsy: efficient, friendly, professional, knowledgable, a fount of knowledge about human nature.

She married young, birthed two boys, and headed back to the Southwest Corner (she liked it when i called it that) when the marriage crumbled in Detroit. She had a rough life, but she made it work. It was not the way most go about it, but she earned her pay, and made it work. She loved those two boys unconditionally right up to the day she passed, always more concerned about them than herself.

Patsy loved her family as well without any limitations. She was intensely close to her mother Pat before Pat died way too early, and then cared for her father. The whole family loved to dance. i wish everyone could have seen her dance with her brother Dan and father: graceful moves. She and her sister Maureen were as close as two sisters could be.

i should mention she was one of my best supporters. Every time i wrote a post, she would be among the first to complement me. She also was not shy in telling me when she thought i made an error or was being to silly. i appreciated her for that. She also became good pals with many folks from my past in Facebook posts.

As i pointed out earlier, she was stubborn. She made it work.

She did it her way.

Rest in peace, my dear sister. i am sure you, Pat, and Ray are dancing in the stars.