Patricia Tabor

My Grandmother Patricia Jeanne Wilson was born on April 6th 1932 in Coffeyville, Kansas & was parented by Charles & Audrey Wilson & had sisters Shirley & Mary Gladys.

Her life growing up was typical of Midwest children at the time. She married Virgil Tabor & they quickly had two children, Karen in 1953 & Steven in 1955. I know my grandmother worked as a telephone operator in Coffeyville. After moving the family to California in 1960, they were able to purchase a home in Lakewood, California that they would live in for almost thirty years.

Gram worked at JC Penny for many years. She enjoyed that job & all the hustle & bustle, she was always a people person, someone who wanted to help others. While her daughter was getting married & starting a family, her son was off surfing the waves of Southern California & building a career, her & papa built a comfortable life together.

My mom & I moved in with my grandparents in the late 1990’s. This made her & my grandfather extremely happy. She would always tell me I had to trust in the Lord & treat others right, otherwise my life would not be well spent. She taught me how to work in the garden. She LOVED to water plants. Hydrangeas were her favorite & rightfully so, as the name itself is derived from Hydra(water). As I grew older & found a career in the Horticulture industry, she would be so happy to come visit for an hour or so at Morris Nursery. We would spend hours at home in the garden changing plants, adding mulch & me trying to tell her no gram, you don’t have to water that every day.haha Her & my mom built an antique business in the central valley. They would buy & sell any & everything & have fun while doing it. Gram would make friends with anyone who came around talking to her, but if you tried to wrong her or my mom you were done & to never again buy from this family. She was the kindest soul you ever knew, & would make people laugh. My mom bought her a musical stick horse & gram a few days later came out into the livingroom riding it randomly, providing one of the funniest moments in family history. The pace of the central valley fit my grandparents, especially Gram. They weren’t city folk, but they enjoyed being the up & coming part of California. Grandma loved enjoying the cool evenings with the delta breeze & a cup of coffee, cause lord she needed her coffee. As I went off to college my grandma’s life began to change for the worse. For roughly twelve years she was in some sort of care home. However, her Wilson stock kept her strong. I always remember the ER trips where the Doc’s & nurses could never believe a little old lady was so strong. She was the matriarch of the family & she was not yet ready to let us take the lead. After that long fight with Dementia & Alzheimer’s, among other issues, she passed on February 15th, 2022.

My grandma lived through a World War & all the way to the social media age. The amount of change in her lifetime is incredible, in both good & bad ways. She would tell me since I was a young boy, this new world was not for her, that I needed to be careful & not lose sight of the Lord & His way. I know she is looking down on not only me, but all of us reading this guiding us on that road. One day when we come to the end, she will be there with her hand held out ready to welcome us home. I love you Gram

Graveside services will be held on March 2, 2022 in Coffeyville, Kansas 1:00pm central time at Fairview Cemetery. It will be streamed on their Facebook live account for all those who’d like to view(you don’t need a FB account to watch). If you’d like to send flowers or something of that sort, we would rather you donate, in her name, to the Alzheimer’s Association online. She was a fighter & she would want others to have a better chance than she did against this awful disease. https://www.alz.org/?form=alz_donate. To share a memory or to leave the family a message of condolence, please visit www.fordwulfbrunschapel.com