Patricia P. Farmer, of Cushing, died peacefully at the Sussman House hospice on May 20, 2022. Pat (how she preferred to be called) lived an extraordinarily rich life of 95 years.
Pat was the only child of John Aldrich Dow and Katherine Orear Dow, descended from 17th-century New England emigrates. Born March 7, 1927, in Winchester, Mass., she grew up in nearby Reading, where her grandfather was the town doctor, in a home modeled after a traditional New England saltbox. She graduated from Middlebury College with a major in fine arts, then met and married Robert Metzger, with whom she had three children, Geoffrey, Alison, and Tory.
She enrolled in the graduate art history program at the University of North Carolina. Another new graduate student, arriving from California, asked if she could bring his bicycle to Chapel Hill from Raleigh’s train station. That student was David Farmer, and it was the beginning of her love for him and a 57-year marriage.
That life included living in Worcester, Cambridge, Chicago, Birmingham, Ala., Santa Barbara, Calif., New York City, three years in Belgium, and finally Cushing, where they purchased a farmhouse on the St. George River in 1983 that they named Left Field. With David she had two more children, Emily and Rachel, in 1967 and 1970. They loved to travel, including much of Europe, North Africa, Mayan Mexico, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. She was an avid hiker and painter, exhibiting locally as one of the Nine Lively Ladies in Rockland’s Eastern Tire Gallery and in Cushing’s Arts in the Barn.
She was an engaging speaker, excellent writer, and ferocious editor, always with a strong sense of humor. In addition to teaching art history, she was a pioneer woman editor and writer on Worcester’s Evening Gazette, a publicist for “The Advocates” (a Boston-based PBS program), cataloguer of a major corporate art collection in Chicago, a university art gallery director in Birmingham and head of publications for Health Sciences Development, Columbia University.
She loved Left Field, which provided a gathering place for family, many now also calling Maine home. In addition to David and her children, she could count eight grandchildren: Lucy, Jasper, Harry, Max, Phoenix, Emerson, Juniper, and Streeter.
As was Pat’s wishes no formal services will be held for her. The family will honor her life privately.
Hall Funeral Home and Cremation Services, 78 Main St., Thomaston has care of the arrangements.
To extend online condolences visit Pat’s Book of Memories at hallfuneralhomes.com.
