Patricia Ann Myshrall

Born in Waterville, Maine, in December 1937 (although she sometimes claimed to hail from Paris!), Pat was always proud to be a Sagittarian. At St Francis' Church she was christened 'Marie Patricia Ann', the first child of Otto and Evelyn Gadbois Myshrall. With a strong Franco-American heritage, for her first few years Patricia spoke French, thoroughly learning English only when she was sent to school. Tragically her mother died in childbirth two years later, being delivered of a son, Pat's brother Carol - named after King Carol of Romania! Because her father was a traveling salesman at that stage of his career, Patricia and her baby brother were cared for by beloved paternal aunts, living for a few years in Bath, Maine. When she was seven, Otto re-married and the children acquired a new mother, another Evelyn. The young family settled in Brunswick in a home on a then-unpaved lane, as she would say later, "up to the Mere Point Road." The small Cape - still there - had plenty of land and, besides a garden, her parents kept sundry farm animals most of which Pat regarded as cherished pets, bringing them indoors and dubbing them with celebrity names like Tina and Ike! That part of Brunswick was still so rural that Pat was chased by a moose at least once as she walked to school.

A year later, the first of her new siblings  arrived with the birth of her beloved sister Brenda; Pat always remembered the day the infant Brenda was brought home from the hospital, and could also picture little Brenda a few years later standing on a stepstool at the kitchen sink washing the dishes. In due course the girls acquired more brothers: Michael (usually 'Big Mike' to distinguish him from his son and namesake), Joseph, and Peter. When these men came of age they all served their country in - respectively - the Air Force, the Navy, and the US Army.

Patricia attended several public and parochial grammar schools in Brunswick,  but was educated mostly at St John's Catholic School by the Ursuline Sisters and the Marist Fathers. Classroom learning was often difficult for Pat, especially with unsympathetic teachers, but she flourished when guided with kindness, in particular by Mother Jeanne de Chantal. Patsy was even awarded a school prize in penmanship for Palmer Method handwriting (although skeptics many years later would gently suggest it had been awarded by a blind man!). She and a couple of fellow school girls were regarded as "the top readers" - for Pat sometimes after bedtime under the covers with a flashlight. As the oldest of the Myshrall children, Patricia naturally led her brothers and sister in childhood games and play. She would teach them the current popular songs from the Hit Parade, renditions of which they would give to amused neighbors and friends. Summers meant weekend trips to the camp and sandlot baseball games with the children of nearby households, including one Gary who became an oddly recurring figure throughout her life, but was a dashing local swain when he acquired a motorcycle! Patricia helped her siblings learn their catechism to prepare for First Communion. Her own succinct description of her childhood was, "We were raised in the love and fear of God." In those days of radio and early television that meant wholesome entertainment like the music of her favorite Perry Como; so devoted was Pat that she was named the head of the local Perry Como fan club!

As a Brunswick business man, her father had managed a local feed store (now Brooks' Feed & Farm), then owned and operated the Pleasant Street Market (later Tess' Market). Pat had started at Brunswick High School, but when Otto suffered severe health problems and could no longer work, his wife had to work outside the home and Pat was needed to care for her siblings, leaving school. Eventually she too would work, while still living at home: first at a fish cannery, then at Standard Romper/Healthtex. That career was abruptly halted when she accidentally sewed together the wrong pieces of pre-cut clothing, spoiling a whole batch on the production line - a misfortune that sounds like a Lucille Ball comedy sketch. Soon after, she was hired at Jay Brush making artist brushes for Grumbacher of New York, first at the old factory on Dunlap Street, then in the Fort Andross Mill when the business moved there. Pat was at Jay Brush for ten years, even though sometimes after a late night of dancing at the Castaways local club she would need to refresh herself with a very brief nap in the Ladies' Room!

The years 1967-68 were the watershed of Pat's life - her own big break. As a babysitter for Brunswick families, Pat had come to know a Bowdoin faculty member, his wife, and two young daughters. Professor Beckwith taught music and when he was scheduled to take a sabbatical in the spring semester of 1968,  he and his wife needed a governess to tend their daughters while the family toured Europe and its opera houses and concert halls. They asked Pat to come with them as an au pair. When she agreed, Patricia's life was never the same thereafter. Sailing to the Mediterranean on an ocean liner, Patricia spent months visiting twelve countries, living for a time in Vienna, attending eleven opera performances (including a presentation of Beethoven's 'Fidelio' with marionettes!). She even met the famous Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad.

The Grand Tour of the Continent was indelibly memorable, but her life was completely transformed upon her return to the States. Professor Beckwith urged her not to go back to factory work, but to look for new employment at Bowdoin College where her sister Brenda already worked in the College Library and where there was a low-level opening to repair books. At a Friday job interview the Librarian of the College invited her to return on Monday even without a high school diploma to begin repairing books in September 1968. She stayed for almost 48 years till summer 2016 when she was rising 79 years old, moving up bravely and steadily from bookplater to Circulation Assistant,  working first in what was scarcely more than a utility closet but finally at the Circulation Desk with a fully automated lending system. She was almost immediately greatly beloved by colleagues and the College community. Generations of Bowdoin students remembered her and would seek her out when they returned to campus years later. If she did not remember quite all of their names, they were happy to hear her ask, "How are you, Dear?"

Those many years at the College Library were the context for Pat's 'magnum opus': annual editions of her chronicle of the events of the day, known affectionately as 'The Book': celebrity news and gossip, the achievements and foibles of her colleagues and friends, odd or even bizarre news stories, but mostly astonishing quotations. 'The Book' was the brilliant conception of catalogue librarian Joseph Derbyshire. Each workday morning when Pat delivered to Cataloguing her truck of newly-plated Library books she would announce for all to hear "the Latest!" These pronouncements were often so funny that Joe would jot them down on scraps of paper - hence the earliest installments were called 'Pure Pat or What They Said in such and such a Year'. Almost until her retirement Patricia was the principal contributor and the final editor of what grew to be a Library enterprise, read aloud annually at the staff Christmas party,  several times accompanied by improvised music on an auto harp, but always greeted with gales of uproarious laughter.

But not all of her work was hilarity. In 2007 Patricia was named the Maine laureate for the Outstanding Older Worker of the year, recognition of which brought her to Washington DC for a gala awards banquet. During her several days in the capital she met the members of Maine's congressional delegation, and found in Senator Olympia Snowe a fellow admirer of Danny's Hot dogs on the mall in Brunswick!

Among Pat's many fond admirers a very large contingent are four-legged. She was an ardent lover of animals and in innumerable cases a rescuer. When a Bowdoin undergraduate unsuitably brought with him to school a white Lab mix who had been found on Boston Common, Pat adopted Zachary and the two were fanatically inseparable. Her father gave her a barn cat, a black and white tuxedo kitten whose elegant appearance prompted her to name him Calvin Klein. Later she was given several pure-bred Persians, mostly named for figures in music history or literature: Nikolai, Simpkin, Gabriel, and Crispin. At her long-time home on Cumberland Street unnumbered strays, visitors, and feral cats found her, apparently having learned through their network that Pat would generously feed them and often find them new homes.

After nearly five decades at the Library, Patricia quite suddenly decided to retire. The Library had changed from a relaxed community where colleagues gathered every morning for a shared coffee break to a workplace where team members sitting in adjacent cubicles communicated mostly by email.

Planning to spend some quiet years in her own home, Patricia suffered a most tragic loss when her two dearest friends, Judy and Paul and their dog, were recklessly killed in a car crash near Lewiston. Thereafter her health would decline as she suffered severe macular degeneration and her balance became unpredictable. This year it was discovered that she had developed an already metastasized cancer for which she calmly declined further testing or treatment. She insisted that she had led a remarkably full life and did not fear death, especially since she was convinced that the Madonna "would come down to get her." Referred to Hospice care, she did not linger long and after a reasonably pleasant day she suddenly passed away in her own home, in her own bed, after only the briefest struggle. Her closest friends had hoped that she would be with us for months more or at least weeks, but they remembered that Pat had always been almost comically impatient of waiting or delays.

The family offer their overwhelming gratitude Dr David Inger and the entire CHANS/Hospice staff. It is suggested that memorial contributions may aptly be made to an animal charity of choice. Above all, Patricia would ask friends to pray for the blessed repose of her kind, humble, and grateful soul: May she rest in peace and rise in glory. 

Patricia was predeceased by her parents and her brother Carol. She is survived by her sister Brenda (Lenny), brother Michael Sr (Terry), and brothers Joseph and Peter, together with several nieces and nephews and their children. A host of friends is shocked and devastated by her loss.

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