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15334 Patton, Richard Glenn
December 28, 1925 - August 14, 1994

usma1946-D2

 

MEMORIAL ARTICLE
Published Assembly Jul '97

RICHARD GLENN PATTON
No. 15334 Class of 1946

Died 14 August 1994 at Donelson, Tennessee, aged 68 years. Interment: Ridgewood Cemetery, Carthage, Tennessee.

Dick Patton was born 28 December 1925 in Battle Creek, Michigan. His family later moved to Carthage, Tennessee where he grew up. He entered West Point directly after graduating from Smith County High School in Carthage.

Roommate Dick Tuck recalled: "I wish that Dick Patton had lived to make our fiftieth reunion. He was very proud of his West Point background and always liked to keep up with classmates. He certainly was a wonderful roommate. He did more than his share of the work, always had a cheerful word for others and never got upset with the system. He never had a problem with keeping up with whatever was required. He achieved academic stars for our first class year and was very close for the other two. He enjoyed very much being a member of the Cadet Chapel Choir and Cadet Glee club. He was quiet but his classmates recognized his ability and he let his accomplishments speak for themselves. The respect which we all had for Dick was shown when he was chosen to be our representative to the Honor Committee." Dick graduated as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.

Dick was attending the Engineer Officer Basic Course at Fort Belvoir, Virginia when he took time off to return to Carthage to marry Miriam Westmoreland on 27 December 1946. Dick's first assignment was to Guam where he commanded a company in the 555th Engineer Battalion. In 1949, he resigned his commission to try his hand in the civilian world.

After earning a Master of Civil Engineering degree at the University of Illinois in 1950, Dick's first position was with Marr & Holman, Architects and Engineers in Nashville, Tennessee as a structural engineer. He remained with that firm until 1961 when he and two associates formed their own Architectural and Engineering firm, Daugherty, Miller & Patton. In 1963, this became just Miller, Patton and Associates. In 1968, Miller, Patton & Associates became part of Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates. Dick opened his own design office and then in 1971 joined Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon, a well established engineering firm in Nashville as Vice President, Structural and Engineering Division, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. Dick had remained in the Army Reserve and retired with the rank of Colonel.

In 1991, Dick developed cancer. For forty months, he fought the disease but to no avail and he died at home 14 August 1994. He is survived by his wife, Miriam and two daughters, Laura and Margaret.

Dick Patton was a remarkable man; a loving husband and father, a truly gifted design engineer, a mentor to young engineers who worked with him. The remembrances of Dick by his friends and business associates bear this out. Dan Barge, Jr. wrote: "While Dick was an accomplished engineer from a technical standpoint, he was also well known among his peers for his professional standards. He was a great champion of quality control in the design process and deliberately taught these principles to his associates."

Harold Miller remembered: "Dick was extremely proficient, disciplined, dedicated, thorough and successful in every job he undertook, and I am sure this was true in everything he did in life. He was most dependable with an impeccable character, always good natured with a ready smile, patient, thoughtful, kind, honest, courteous, intelligent, sober, reliable and loved his family, his country and his Lord."

Reverend Peter Whalen, wrote: "Dick became a member of St. Philip's Episcopal Church several years before I arrived. He was a faithful member of the choir, a spiritual man, close to God. He was always willing to give time and energy to those who needed help. In the things he did for church, family and community, he accomplished with great deliberateness. He was dedicated to his family and well liked by all. He died with dignity and grace, more concerned about his wife than himself. He was a quiet, steady influence on the people he touched by his life and work."

From Steve Putney, an engineer for whom Dick was a mentor: "Dick was extremely bright and a great engineer, but he excelled at being a man." Steve wrote a note to Dick just before his death, excerpts of which say much: "I appreciate all the opportunities I had to be with you because you provide an example of the steady, quiet strength that is required to conduct oneself in a truly gentlemanly fashion. I think you conduct yourself as closely to following the positive and avoiding the negative as anyone I know, and I respect you very deeply as a person for having done so. Providing the example you do as a person has been very important to me and I will always remember and appreciate you for it."

His loving wife, Miriam, provided the following: "I think of Dick as a fair person always weighing every side of an issue. He was unselfish to fault, always put others before himself. His quiet strength and great wisdom were an inspiration to all who knew him. He was a humble, gentle man who possessed a quality rarely found in others today, kindness toward everyone he knew. He coped with a vicious and relentless disease and like the true soldier he was, never complained. His was a lesson in living and dying to all who knew him. His courage was heroic."

To these words that aptly depict a man loved and admired by all who knew him and a son of whom West Point can be proud, the Class of 1946 is honored to add these words that would mean so much to him: "Well Done, Dick; Be Thou At Peace!"

'46 Memorial Article Project and his wife, Miriam



Personal Eulogy

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