She is survived by her daughter Laurie and son Michael, and her grandchildren Brian, Jessica and Ryan. She also leaves behind her sister, Margaret Fabrizio and nieces Rita and Carla.

Pat grew up a true California Girl, but settled in the Rocky Mountain West when she married her lifelong partner, Dwayne “Bill” Williams in 1955. After a brief time in Venezuela in the early 1960s, they returned to the states, earned her master’s degree from Colorado State University and raised their family in Colorado, Montana and Utah.

Bill’s work also took them to Washington, D.C., briefly in 1982-83, but they eventually returned to Billings, MT, where they remained until he retired in 1993. After that, they moved back to Ogden, UT. Bill passed away in 2013, and, at the urging of her family, Pat finally made her home in Kennewick, where her daughter Laurie and her husband Mark Arreola live.

Pat and Bill loved to travel and explore more than anything. They preferred a cozy campsite to a pampered hotel or resort any day, and they made friends from Florida to Alaska, and from Chesapeake Bay to Puget Sound as easily as setting up a tent.

Eventually they decided they were getting too old to “rough it,” so they bought a used Westfalia camper-van, which they used to take a 3-month trek up the Alcan Highway to Denali and Point Barrow, Alaska.

After Bill retired, they were able to visit places as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Germany, and Pat even traveled to Cambodia with a friend who was adopting a child from an orphanage there.

Her adventurous spirit and outgoing personality made her an ideal traveling companion. She was always ready to drop everything and go camping in the wilderness or just take a nice hike, visit a new museum exhibit, watch a baseball game or enjoy a beer at a brew pub. Anything but sitting around doing nothing.

Eleven years ago, for her 80th birthday, she invited her whole family to hike with her up to Delicate Arch near Moab, UT, just to show everyone she still had it in her!

Pat was a lifelong learner, a student of history, politics and philosophy, with a passion for what is true and what is right.

She stood up for peace and justice when she could and she raised her children to see the world for what it is, and to work to make it better. She will be missed!

The Neptune Society of Kennewick handled her cremation.