Patricia Gibson Conaway died peacefully on Wednesday, Nov, 8, 2017. She was a resident of Little Compton. Born June 8, 1928, in Warren, Penn., she was the only daughter and second born of four children to Marjorie Lehentaler Gibson and her husband Allen Moore Gibson of Sheffield, Penn.

Patty earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Penn State where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Following graduation she worked for the Pennsylvania State Legislature as a researcher with a special interest in mental health. Later she was a Psychiatric Social Worker at the Warren State Hospital in Warren, Penn.

She and Donald E. Conaway, her beloved husband of 63 years, raised their family in Attleboro, Mass. where, in 1960, they started the manufacturing company Checon Corp. She served as office staff in the early years of Checon’s inception, then, as Treasurer of the Corporation and member of its Board of Directors. She was always the well respected “sounding board” for the corporation’s development from basement startup to the largest US manufacturer in its field.

Patty was active in her many communities. She was the first woman to serve on the Sturdy Memorial Hospital Board and was a past president of both the North Purchase Club and the Garden Club of Attleboro. In retirement she served as Deacon for the United Congregational Church of Little Compton as well as an enthusiastic multi-year chair of the One Day Book Sale at the annual church fair. As a dedicated amateur historian with particular interest in genealogy, she left her family a trove of stories with a wider connection to places and events. Family road

trips often included stops in a small town to research primary materials in the town hall or local church.

Both she and Don loved jazz and would travel to enjoy favorite performers in New York, Boston and Warwick. She particularly loved attending the Boston Symphony and the Newport Classical Music Festival. She was rarely without a book in hand or a suggestion of one and she reveled in the camaraderie and lively discussions in her local book groups.

Patty is predeceased by her husband Don, by brothers Donald and Jerome Gibson, and survived by her brother Alfred Gibson of Plano, Texas, her daughters Susan Lincoln of Boxford, Mass., Anne Wilson Downing of Damascus, Ore. and her son D. Allen Conaway of Bristol. She was a grateful grandmother to five and a great grandmother to four.

A funeral service in her memory will be held at the United Congregational Church of Little Compton at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2. A reception at the church will follow. In lieu of flowers the family requests that you send donations in Patty’s memory to the Westport Watershed Alliance. http://westportwatershed.org