 PATE, MARY JOYCE COX died of complications after 13 years of Alzheimer's disease at Wooldridge Nursing Home in Corpus Christi, TX on December 7, 2012. She was born on May 19, 1922 to Wylie B Cox and Donnie Marriott Cox, at their home near Ponder, TX. She started to school when she was five because she could read better than her brother could after first grade, and she really wanted to go to school. She and her two brothers rode to school on their Shetland ponies because there were no school buses there at that time. From the time she was six, one of her morning chores was to make the biscuits for breakfast, while her dad and the boys saw to the stock and other outside chores. Her family moved to East Valley View Community, east of Portales, NM, and she received her high school diploma at Portales. That fall of 1939, she got a ride with one of her uncles to Denton, TX, when he was taking a truckload of fruit to sell, and she enrolled at North Texas Teachers College. She stayed with her widowed grandmother, who owned and cooked for a boarding house, because the college didn't have dorms at that time, and Mary served and bussed tables, washed dishes, and helped clean up for her room and board. She also worked at a variety store and babysat for a small amount of spending money. Her future husband, Virgil Pate, had long been a friend of her brothers, and she dated him a few times when she was going with the bunch of kids from Arch and East Valley View. They later started writing to each other, and after she finished her third year in college, they decided to elope to Gallup, NM, where he and many other underemployed men were finding good-paying jobs at Ft. Wingate. Their first home was a tent, and there were few amenities and lots of teasing from their relatives and friends. They moved back to Arch to farm a small acreage in partnership with Virgil's sister and her husband, but their crops didn't support two families very well, so they tried a small farm at Ft. Sumner, NM. Virgil was drafted into the Army shortly after, so Mary went back to Denton to see if she could finish her degree in Home Economics while the men were away at war. She stayed with her grandmother again, only now she had a toddler daughter, so the ladies babysat, too. As many wives did after WW II, she taught at Portales Junior High and sewed professionally to help him get his degree in Range Management and Animal Husbandry at Eastern New Mexico College and at New Mexico A&M. Some of his first jobs were at Arsenic Tubs on the San Carlos Indian Reservation; at Pima, AZ; at Capitan, NM; at Portales, NM; at Deming, NM; at Las Cruces, NM, and at Socorro, NM. She said she had moved more times than Barbara Bush: more than 36 moves in their married life. They were married more than 55 years before he died in 1996. After her children were all in school, she worked briefly at the Socorro El Defensor Chieftain newspaper, did volunteer work at the Socorro Presbyterian church, some substitute teaching, and then, in the early 1960s, she was offered the job of head dietitian at NMIMT, at which she excelled and really enjoyed. Her husband was transferred from his job as district manager of the BLM office to a new post in Canon City in 1968, and he decided to retire a few years later, so they moved back to New Mexico: first, to Albuquerque; then for about 10 years in Portales; and finally, in Jemez Springs. Mary Joyce was a loyal friend, a gentle teacher and advisor to her children and grandchildren, a loving relative to both her and her husband's families, a very capable and understanding partner to her husband, a generous hostess, and a woman who lived her faith. She longed for more educational and job opportunities for women, and for women to be more represented in our government. She loved music: from church hymns to 1970s pop, from classic western to classical orchestral works, to Lawrence Welk, and even to some of her children's 1950s and 1960s music. In her 70s, she was talked into whistling old hymns for her church's offertory music, in which she added many trills and bird calls to the songs. She was an excellent seamstress and tailor, from children's clothing and western-style shirts for the males in the family to fiesta dresses, suits, and elegant dresses for the women, from draperies and home decorating to bridal ensembles and evening dresses. She had a lifelong love for flowers and horticulture, caring for her own houseplants and landscaping, being a flower show judge at the county fairs and garden club events, and providing many hundreds of arrangements for church altars. Her cookbook and recipe collection were truly exceptional, and she was always interested in trying new cuisines, as well as new seasonings and produce, freezing, canning, pickling, making jerky and satisfying the family's sweet tooth. She was initiated into the Order of the Eastern Star in Socorro and served as Worthy Matron of that organization in Portales. She was a longtime member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the Portales chapter, and was an active member of the Portales Garden Club. She was an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church and also served as Clerk of Session in Portales. She is survived by her three children: Sherry Crane (husband Horris) of Albuquerque; Charley Pate (wife Susan) of Jemez Springs; and Dee Pate (wife Ellen) of Larkspur, CO; her sister Eula Ross of Corpus Christi; her brother Jim Cox of Jacksonville, FL. Her grandchildren are Bonnie Murray of Albuquerque; Carol O'Neal of Marian, OH; Jarod Pate of Englewood, CO; Derek Pate of Omaha, NE; and Jillian Pate of Denver and their families. Also surviving are her special friend of over 75 years, Leviatha Jones of Tatum; her brothers-in-law, M.O. Pate of Camp Verde, AZ and Verrell Pate of Lubbock; her sisters-in-law, Pauline Cox of Lubbock, Martha Cox of Jacksonville, Glenna Dawn Reeves of Midland, TX, and Marilyn Pate of Lubbock. She was preceded in death by her mother, her father, her two brothers, and her husband. Cremation was handled by Guardian Funeral Home in Corpus Christi. Remains will be interred in the Portales cemetery in mid January. To honor her life, if you know of a woman who is working to finish her education, and you can see a way to help her, please do it.
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