Patricia Jean Ford, Pacific Grove, California
1927 - 2007
Emporia native Patricia Jean Ford Turner died Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007, at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in California. She was 80.
Mrs. Turner was a laboratory technologist for the Waligora Group and the Bio-Metric Group in Monterey before she retired. She was a resident of the Monterey Peninsula for 53 years before she moved two years ago to Canterbury Woods in Pacific Grove.
The daughter of Fred and Lilas Rowe Ford, she was born July 15, 1927, in Emporia. She graduated from Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia with a degree as a laboratory technologist.
She was crowned “Miss Peggy Pedagog” at the KSTC 1947 Homecoming. Her photograph with her court still is featured in the Emporia State University brochures.
She loved traveling to New York and Paris to visit her daughter, Nan. During one of these visits to New York, she and her daughter marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade dressed as Calypso clowns.
She met Joe Turner, also from Emporia, at KSTC. They were married in 1950 in Emporia and lived in Kansas City, San Francisco and Tacoma before they moved to the Monterey Peninsula. He died earlier.
Mrs. Turner was a volunteer, especially for All Saints Episcopal Church in Carmel, Calif., spending many hours cooking for various events. For several years, she was the director of the “I Help” program, which provides dinner and an overnight stay for homeless men.
She is survived by one daughter, Nan Turner of Columbus, Ohio; two sons, David Turner of Potter Valley, Calif., and Steve Turner of San Jose, Calif., and five grandchildren. Survivors in Emporia include a niece, Theresa Lyon.
A sister, Shirley Ford Stolfis, died earlier.
The memorial service to celebrate her life will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Carmel.
The family suggests that, instead of flowers, memorial contributions in her name be made to a charity of the donor’s choice.