Mary Barbara Patz was born May 2, 1933, in Buffalo, NY. Although her name was "Mary Barbara," she was called "Barbara" or "Barb" by her brothers --- and, in her childhood years, even "Dolly" or "Babs" by parents, friends, and relatives. Around 1940, my folks almost lost Barb due a serious bout with bronchitis. I can recall that for quite awhile she had to sleep sitting up in bed, or she’d cough and choke. This may be one reason she was always thin though out her life and would easily catch colds, etc. This, plus the fact she smoked until almost the day she passed, caused her to be thin and frail almost all her life --- especially her later years.
When our folks had sold their house and had bought and moved into a trailer, Barb closed her shop. She too bought a trailer and had it placed next to theirs. Barb went back to full time work at Gowanda. She always loved buying things and most always bought two . . . one for her and one for my Dad or Mom . . . sometimes three, just in case one of them would lose an item. Barb's place was always full of odds and ends, and, especially in her later years, most were not even opened.
A humorous incident that I’ll always remember happened near the end --- after I had taken Barb to the hospital because she was weak and had breathing problems caused by emphysema. A doctor who was looking in on Barb, in place of her regular doctor, began interviewing her. Besides the usual questions, the interview went something like this:
The doc then diverted to other questions -- and, as if he just remembered . . .
Barb held up four fingers on her right hand and said, "Four days ago." The doctor gave me a dumbfounded look --- like he did not know whether to laugh or bawl her out. I just looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. In the last few months, Barb was also seeing a doctor regularly about her recent problem of not being able to eat very much at a sitting. Her weight had dropped to 88 pounds. In the hospital, along with the usual tests, they found out that Barb also had a heart problem (atrial fibrillation) that she or her regular doctor apparently did not know about. After she had died, the doctor told us that when her breathing stopped, her heart also stopped. Barb's body just could not take it . . . by this time, weighed 82 pounds. A couple of days after Barb passed, I was cleaning out a pile of stuff on the floor of the passenger side of her vehicle. I found four cartons of cigarettes that Barb had purchased the day before she entered the hospital . . . that was my sister !!!" Barb died on July 22, 2004. She is interred with her parents at Holy Cross Cemetery, Angola, New York. Text written by Bernard William Patz, brother of Mary Barbara Patz.
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