Longtime Patterson and Westside resident Mary Pat Thompson passed away on December 7th at her home in Asheville, North Carolina.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Mary Pat arrived in Newman with her parents, A. M. Roscoe, MD and Ethel Roscoe, RN in the early 1930’s. From Newman her father advertised nationwide for doctors to join him in establishing the Westside Hospital District and building the Westside Hospital on farm ground off highway 33 between Newman and Gustine.
The hospital included a residence for the Roscoe family, and Mary Pat attended schools in Newman before boarding at the Anna Head School in Berkeley, receiving her high school diploma in 1948. She attended Santa Rosa Junior College before earning her RN from the Stanford Nursing School in San Francisco, graduating in 1953.
At one of many summer pool parties at the hospital residence, she realized that one of the doctors who had answered her father’s call to come to the Westside had a son that was ‘the one’, and she and Jim Thompson, Jr. were married in 1952. After Jim’s service in the army during the Korean War, the couple lived in Berkeley, Pacific Grove, and Modesto. Along the way they added Nancy, James, and David to the family, and Mary Pat picked up the nickname ‘MP’. The family moved to Patterson in 1963 when Jim and his business partner Doug Swanson purchased the Eagle Drug Store.
MP worked diligently to raise the three kids, but still had time for bridge club, Girl Scouts, water skiing, stage plays in San Francisco and the Mother Lode, and her role as official ‘team mom’ of the Patterson Swim Team, which she helped establish. Once the kids had moved out of the house on North Fourth Street, MP went to work with Jim running the drug store as well as earning her pilot’s license to be able to co-pilot with Jim their single engine plane that took them on many air-trips all over Northern California. Jim also learned to co-pilot with MP their Ford Model A coupe, traveling with the Sonoma A’s model A club on road trips all over the west. Jim and MP officially retired from the drug store in 1987 but continued to fill in for fellow westside pharmacists until 1990.
When Jim passed away in 1996, MP moved to the south side of Patterson, enjoying international travel, snow skiing, Model A runs, and volunteering with the Patterson Township Historical Society and The Orestimba Scholarship Community Association (TOSCA). With macular degeneration taking away her ability to drive, MP moved to Asheville, North Carolina, sent off with a grand combination going-away and 80th birthday party at the Federated Church Fellowship Hall. After living in Patterson for 47 years and within a 200-mile radius of the Westside for over 75 years, she followed through on her plan to live in a continuing care community she had researched on one of her many trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains to visit her son David. Through a combination of David’s many connections in the geriatrics field of the region, David’s nearby home, and MP’s ability to befriend just about anyone, MP quickly established a new home base and thrived in her new environment, enjoying many on-campus activities, any excuse to go out to eat, and local and international travel.
MP enjoyed a wonderful day with her three children and their partners before succumbing to pulmonary hypertension, passing peacefully in her sleep. She is survived by her children, Nancy Pimentel (John) of Newman; James (‘Jami’) Thompson (Melissa) of Portland, Oregon; and David Thompson (Kim) of Waynesville, North Carolina. She also leaves three half-sisters and a half-brother, a stepsister and stepbrother, as well as a grandson, two great granddaughters and a great grandson, and a great-great granddaughter. MP was preceded in death by her husband Jim and her granddaughter, Melissa Pimentel.
Mary Pat supported many charitable organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, The Nature Conservancy, Cause for Paws (Newman), The North Coast Land Conservancy (Oregon), The Cancer Society, The Orestimba Scholarship Community Association (TOSCA), the Patterson Township Historical Society, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community. Donations to any of your choosing would be welcome.
