Patricia Nicholson Fowler August 08, 1936 – March 24, 2019 Share this obituary Sign Guestbook| Send Sympathy Card Patricia Carolyn Nicholson Fowler, 82, passed away on Sunday, March 24, 2019, at Highland House Nursing & Rehab Center in Fayetteville. Pat, the baby of her family, was born Saturday, August 8th, 1936 in Banks, Alabama. After an idyllic southern childhood spent mostly fishing with her granddaddy Rainey, the pig-tailed, tattle-telling nemesis of her siblings, Wilber, Jean and Peggy, grew into a lovely but quiet bookkeeper that still lived with her parents.
One summer night in Ozark she agreed to a blind date to appease a high school girlfriend that needed escorts for her date. That night she met Joe Fowler of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Joe was a worldly, older, swagger-filled Army paratrooper attending school at nearby Fort Rucker.
Joe said in one of his many love letters, “As soon as I saw you I knew it. That’s for me! Before you I was always a love ‘em and leave ‘em guy.
You made me want to stay”. The love letters kept coming long after Joe returned to his home base of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. It was a ten hour drive from Ft.
Campbell to Ozark. Joe joked later to his children that he had to marry their mother because he just couldn’t make that damn drive anymore and she, being a good Baptist, wouldn’t see him alone unless they were married. So, somewhat to her parent’s (Harvey and Teresa) dismay the couple married on May 15th, 1958.
Eventually, after years in Europe, they settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Theirs was marriage typical of the times and fraught with the scars that adulthood, the military and children inflict. Three children were born of their union, Sherry Moore, Daniel and Richard Fowler.
Pat was a stay-at-home mother until she began working for Black & Decker in 1969. She enjoyed her job and the friends she made while working. Until last year her favorite day of the month was the first Wednesday, the day of the monthly reunion lunch with her former co-workers.
Those lunches continued for 20 years after retirement and if her health had remained intact they’d be occurring still as Pat was the organizer and baker of the desserts. Her butter pecan cake was the favorite of the group and if anyone was wavering on attending she’d drop a “You know I’m making my butter pecan” into the conversation to seal the deal. In 2002 Joe passed away and Pat began her final act.
She was not a miserable, lost or lonely widow. Far from it. She found she enjoyed her life and home more intensely since it was now hers alone.
She did her own gardening, cooked or baked every day, followed politics, read voraciously and spent time with her friends. Her greatest enjoyment during these years was becoming a lady who lunched. She knew the name of her server at each of her favorite haunts.
Waitresses, hostesses and restaurant owners all became her friends. She is survived by a daughter, Sherry F. Moore; two sons, Daniel L. Fowler and Richard R. Fowler, and one grandson, Alexander Moore, to remember her always. She was much loved and that’s all that really matters.
Her ashes will be buried with Joe’s at Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery on Fort Bragg, NC.
If you found any mistakes, or you would like to add/remove to this obituary, please contact us by email: info@obituary.memorial. We never ask money for this.
