Patricia Elizabeth Gregory, 94, formerly of Glasgow, passed away January 4, 2015 in St. John’s Lutheran Home in Billings, Montana.
Pat was born October 9, 1920 in Grand forks, North Dakota to Dr. Harry and Tisdale, of Scots/Irish and Shetland Islander descent. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Dakota at age 20, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She then moved to Chicago to earn an MBA at Northwestern University. While working as the first female buyer at Marshall Field she met and Married David Gregory, MD, and then supported him though his abbreviated internship. When he deployed to the Philippines at the end of WWII, she returned to UND with their first child to teach home economics, emphasizing in Micro-economics of domestic survival for students who grew up in the Depression Era.
Pat moved to Glasgow in 1948, when Dave found his calling as a small-town GP. She devoted her considerable talents to raising five children and to helping raise up her community, as people did in those days, in roles form den mother to school board member.
Closest to her heart was her work on the Governor’s Committee on Mental Health, Which she commenced after her youngest child Tommy was born severely disabled. She told of sitting with three different governors as Montana’s laws on mental health institutions, special education and child abuse were written.
Somehow surviving and aggressive cancer, and then the loss of her daughter, Mary, to a similar disease, Pat went to work at the front desk of the Glasgow Clinic. She brought her characteristic efficiency and acumen as well as her pleasing smile and friendliness to the task.
Though slowed in later years by the after-effects of aggressive treatment for her rare cancer, Pate and Dave often traveled the country to visit their scattered children and grandchildren. They also visited many interesting corners of the globe when they weren’t relaxing at their cabin at the Pines.
Pat left her new home overlooking the Milk River Valley only after the loss of her husband, Dave, in 2005. She lived at Mission Ridge and later received kind and skillful care at St. John’s in Billings. She made several good friends and enlivened countless conversations wherever she went.
She kept her firm belief and abiding faith in her savior, Jesus Christ, through the end of her life.
Pat was preceded in death by her husband, Dave; daughter, Mary Margaret (at 19); and sons, Thomas George (at 46) and David Lee (at 68).
Pat is survived by David’s wife, Marge and her two sons; daughter, Patricia Ann Gregory Tillotson and her two sons and a daughter; son, John Richard Gregory, MD (Mary Beth) and their two daughters; and son, James Tisdale Gregory (Nancy) and their two sons and a daughter; 10 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Memorials may go to St. John’s Lutheran Home, 3940 Rimrock Road, Billings, Montana 59102.