Patricia Kay Stewart

On the morning of Monday, November 28, 2022, Patricia Kay Stewart, beloved mother, sister, grandmother, and friend passed away at her daughter’s home in Seattle, Washington at the age of 80.

Patricia (Trisha) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 29, 1941, just 22 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor during WWII. Her mother was a nurse and her father was in the Navy, and the family moved around the country quite a bit when Trisha and her siblings, Cynthia and George, were young. Between 1948-1952, after their stint in Hawaii, the family moved briefly to West Seattle, where they rented a house on Victoria Street. They also spent time in Oakland City, Indiana and Columbia, South Carolina before moving to Rosemead, California. When Trisha was in 6th grade, they moved to the Spring Valley region of San Diego County in September of 1952, before buying a house that December on Hermosa Way in Mission Hills. Although they would eventually come back to the Mission Hills home for good, they moved once more in July 1957, to Long Island, where Trisha attended Central High School in Valley Stream, NY.

Trisha graduated H.S. in 1958 and moved into a private boarding house in San Diego, where she attended San Diego State University and obtained her B.A. in Journalism. She loved college and thrived with her new independence, immersing herself in her studies. At SDSU, she met and began dating another journalism student, Bruce Dillon, and they were married on December 23, 1962. Bruce was drafted into the Army and was stationed for a year in Needles, CA and then at Fort Lewis near Olympia WA, where Trisha worked part time as a bank teller until the birth of their first child, Deborah Shantih, on March 24, 1965. The family moved back to San Diego and rented a home in Encinitas, which is where they welcomed their second daughter, Stacey Rebecca on November 29, 1967. The family later purchased a home at 14288 Minorca Cove in Del Mar, where Trisha lived from 1968 to 2007.

Trisha obtained her teaching certificate and was a student teacher for two semesters at Roosevelt High (now Middle) School, where she undoubtedly positively impacted students’ lives in her short time there. Trisha was a natural mother and teacher, reading stories and nursery rhymes, singing songs (especially show tunes), and reciting poetry for her children. She also enjoyed sewing clothes for her daughters and trying out new recipes, while continuing to read voraciously and encouraging her children to do the same. While Bruce was working as Editor of the Coast Dispatch newspaper, Trisha contributed a humorous Erma Bombeck-esque column under the banner “Housewoes,” and she wrote two original novels during those years: “The Cripple of Aryne” and “A Voice in the Wind.” She often enjoyed hosting visits from her siblings, niece, and mother, as well as Bruce’s parents, Dick and Grace Dillon, and his brother and sister-in-law, Dick and Bev Dillon and their three sons, Rick, Sean, and Mark.

While she and Bruce were separated in 1975, and later divorced in 1976, Trisha took a job with NCR in Carmel Valley, first as a librarian, but after studying and taking classes she worked her way up to become a technical writer and then a computer programmer, while building close friendships with several coworkers along the way. Trisha thrived at NCR and thoroughly enjoyed the 1980s, spending time with friends and family, learning to play the piano, and excelling as a single mother and role model for her daughters. Despite the technical aspects of her job, she remained a creative writer at heart and even memorably wrote a clever ditty to the tune of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (…”you don’t build me bit-block maps, you don’t make my cycle time lapse, you don’t bring me data anymore…”). In 1982, she took a solo trip to England, France, and the Netherlands, and enjoyed sharing fond memories from that trip.

Looking for something new in her career around the same time Stacey was attending UC San Diego, Trisha took a job as Administrative Assistant to the Chairman of the UCSD Economics Department, where she worked from 1986-1988. She transferred to the UCSD Sociology Department and worked for their department Chairman until 1996. Despite the ups and downs of the job, she continued to make good friends and used the opportunity to continue learning and growing to feed her intellectual curiosity.

After she left UCSD, Trisha found a job in 1997 at Nellcor Puritan-Bennett as a technical trainer for the Clinivision medical charting system, which involved traveling around the country to various hospitals to develop computer systems, provide training, and offer tech support. While there, she met Ileen Nagorner, who became her best friend and confidant for the next 22 years. When NPB was acquired in 2002 by Tyco Healthcare and the San Diego site was closed, Trisha decided to retire and spend more time on her hobbies like knitting, crocheting, reading, and closely tracking the news.

Trisha traveled often to Seattle in the ensuing years to visit Stacey and her growing family, and when her third grandchild Leo was born in October 2004, she came to stay for several months to help the family as Stacey transitioned back to work. Trisha later decided to sell her home in San Diego and move to Seattle in 2007, where she purchased a home a few blocks from Stacey’s. Trisha began volunteering at Leo’s daycare to work alongside Carol and Rachel McIntyre, where she delighted in telling stories, diplomatically mediating skirmishes between toddlers, and freely offering a seat on her lap. Even after Leo graduated from the daycare, Trisha continued to volunteer there, and helped shape the early lives of many other children in the years following. She also continued to hone her crafting skills by knitting hats, scarves, blankets, and sweaters for Leo, the daycare children, and many other friends and family. Many a daycare field trip was marked by a cluster of small bobbing heads sporting adorably matching knit hats topped with decorative pom-poms.

Debby migrated from New Jersey to Seattle in 2015 and moved into Trisha’s home to help care for her. In the subsequent years, Trisha’s favorite times were family meals together, which included annual Mother’s Day brunches at Chinook’s in Ballard, Friday night meals at restaurants, birthday meals with elaborate cakes made by her son-in-law, “CakeMan Dave,” and various holidays, including her favorite day of the year: Thanksgiving. She provided colorful news updates at these meals and loved to join in provocative conversations. She continued to encourage her grandchildren to READ, READ, READ, and was particularly fond of books by Jane Austen and other classics like “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” She was exceptionally patriotic, embraced the #RESIST movement, and generously knit pink hats for participants in the 2017-2020 Women’s Marches (and even sent one to Stephen Colbert), including tiny pink hats for Stacey’s growing bobblehead collection. She was also quite the collector, and in the last year of her life amassed an impressive collection of beautiful yarn, jewelry, and fountain pens.

Trisha was diagnosed on September 12, 2022, with metastatic pancreatic cancer and, after spending two weeks at Swedish Hospital and one month at an adult family home in Shoreline, she was moved to Stacey and Dave’s home, where she lived for another month. She appreciated being surrounded by family members, watching some of her favorite shows (“Morning Joe,” “Father Brown,” and “Midsomer Murders”) and old movies (“Lily,” “Funny Girl,” “On Golden Pond,” “Pillow Talk,” “Atonement,” “Persuasion,” “The King and I,” and “Casablanca”), listening to songs and lullabies, and sharing memories. During this time, she was able to connect with close friends and say her goodbyes and reflect on a life well lived, including fond memories of those friends and family who had influenced her, and particularly her beloved Aunt Jane, about whom she dreamed frequently in her final days.

Trisha is survived by her two daughters, Debby and Stacey Dillon, her son-in-law David Hasle, grandchildren Kathryn Lee Hasle, Elizabeth Ann Hasle, and Leo Evelyn Hasle, her sister and brother-in-law Cynthia and David Partin, her brother George Stewart, and her niece Juliana Partin. She was preceded in death by her parents Ruth Victoria Pride Stewart and Charles Maxwell Stewart. The family will hold a private memorial service in mid-December. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Trisha’s name to The Seattle Public Library, The Ronald McDonald House at Seattle Children’s Hospital, or The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.