On August 4, 1934, a girl was born. Her parents, Patrick and Winifred (* nee * Walsh) Watson named her Patricia Winifred Watson. Complications during her birth resulted in Erb’s palsy, which limited the strength and motion of her right arm. Despite this handicap, she was (so she’s told me) a bright and cheerful child, and the image of her mother.
When Patti was four years old her mother died. Shortly afterwards, her father remarried. Her stepmother, unfortunately, took a dislike to her and managed to persuade her father to have her put in a foster home. She spent the remainder of her childhood in the care of a woman who treated her as little better than an indentured servant.
Her father died when she was seventeen. They had reconciled shortly before that, but when she went to the wake her stepmother still tried to stop her from entering. Patti faced her down, loudly declaring that “you may have taken kept me from him when he was alive, but I’ll be damned if you’ll keep me from saying goodbye to him.” A few years later when she visited her parents’ adjoining gravesites she found that no marker had ever been placed on either grave, so she made the necessary arrangements herself.
What I know of her life before we met is mostly through stories, with uncertain chronology. She drove a cab in Chicago for several years, and she once mentioned a brief period working as an elevator operator. She developed a love for musical theater, and was a member of the Encore Theater. Among the roles she played was Meg Brockie in Brigadoon, Ado Annie in Oklahoma, and both of the Brewster sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace (in two separate productions – she wasn’t that versatile. She also worked in children’s theater, and delighted in telling stories to children; in a box in our basement is a script she wrote for a production of (I think) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
One night while the cab she was riding in was stopped for a red light someone opened the door and tried to grab her purse. When she wouldn’t let go of it he started beating her on the head. Despite her screams the cabdriver made no effort to help her, and didn’t even drive away when the light turned green. Her attacker was never found, and an attempted lawsuit against the driver and cab company was eventually unsuccessful. As a result of her injuries from the attack she started having blackouts; the company she was working for as a clerk at the time later used her poor attendance record from this time as an excuse to include her in their next set of layoffs.
At about the same time her loving of science fiction led her to become involved in a local Star Trek/SF club. A few years later I joined the same club. Later, we were both looking for new apartments and decided to move in together. What was initially a purely practical arrangement gradually took on romantic overtones. We later used to joke that she had married me so she’d have health insurance, while I was anticipating a huge settlement from the aforementioned lawsuit, which at the time was still pending. In an attempt to increase our income, she decided to take advantage of our regular attendance at science fiction conventions to sell jewelry. Not finding much of a market for wholesale costume jewelry, she shifted to bookselling. The business developed a bit of a following in the Midwest, and we had hopes of expanding to the point of it being a nice supplement for my eventual retirement.
Unfortunately, Patti’s health began slipping. She was diagnosed with diabetes, and started having associated health problems. Arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, and the loss of half her left foot to an infection made walking difficult; but the acquisition of a motorized scooter restored her mobility. Then she developed cataracts, and what would have been routine corrective surgery was complicated by diabetic retinopathy, leaving her legally blind. No longer being able to drive was a severe blow to someone who once thought nothing of driving with friends from Chicago to Milwaukee for lunch. Still, she continued to be as active as her health permitted, navigating her scooter using what landmarks she could still identify, proudly displaying the “Weird Load” bumper sticker pasted across its back.
I’ve given the details of her recent battle against Parkinson’s in other threads, and won’t repeat them now. She had repeatedly threatened to live to be 107 just to aggravate me, and I wish she’d been able to make good on that threat. Twenty years was not enough time together. When we had gotten married she was past her childbearing years, but had often talked about taking in foster children. Her only legacy is the years of joy and heartache we shared.
