Patricia "Pat" A. Lovett

Patricia A. (Pat) Lovett died July 3 in Rockford at age 96, due to complications from a fall. Born Patricia Holland in 1923, she grew up on a farm in Milton, Iowa, riding horses, rounding up dairy cattle, and playing basketball and baseball in high school. She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1945 with a degree in English, following it up with a masters in drama two years later—in the process, writing a screenplay that was performed on live TV at the dawn of television.
She then taught English and drama at Dixon High School before meeting Richard E. (Dick) Lovett, to whom she was married for 58 years until his death in 2011. In 1962, she, Dick, and family moved to small-town Kentucky, where—a skilled and voluminous letter-writer through much of her life—she produced detailed accounts of a Northerner’s experiences in 1960s Kentucky.
A few years later, the family moved to Massachusetts and then back to Dixon, where she returned to part-time teaching…finding herself one of three Presbyterians teaching, among other things, grade-school science at a parochial school.
In later years, she chaired a committee that combed through 21 years of material to produce a well-received book of sermons by Dr. Malcolm D. Ludy, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Dixon, from 1953 to 1974. She was also active in numerous other church and community projects well into her 70s. To her children and grandchildren, however, she will be best remembered for her kindness, parenting skills, gentle wisdom, ready laugh, and sly sense of humor that matured over the years like fine wine.
She is survived by sons Rick and David [Deb], granddaughters Christi [Annaleis] Widmar and Trish, and siblings Jane [Al] Pope, Diane Davis, and John Holland. A memorial will be held via Zoom at 3 pm CDT on August 15, which would have been her 97th birthday. In the days before the memorial, the Zoom link will be posted on her sons’ Facebook pages and Rick’s website: www.richardalovett.com.