Biography

Edith Patterson Adams
27 July 1914 to 26 Oct 2009

Edith Adams was born in Vancouver, Canada on 27 July 1914. She graduated from King George High School and entered Illinois College in Springfield, Illinois. Graduating in 1938, she received a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in French and Spanish and a minor in psychology. From there she moved to New Jersey entered the field of business. In 1942 she joined the American Red Cross where she was with the 33rd General Hospital in the North African Theatre, moving up to Rome and Naples when the Allies took Italy. After the war she was employed by the Henry J. Kaiser Experimental Division in Emeryville, California. She married and moved to Hawaii where she had 3 children. One died shortly after birth. 5 ytears later she commenced to have a series of moves taking her from the east coast to the west coast where she finished raising her 2 girls. She worked for the Veterans Administration Hospital Cancer Research in Oklahoma City and for Aerospace Corporation and Lockheed in California. In 1983 she retired from Lockheed and moved to Walnut Creek with her husband, Bruce Adams, who died in 1995,

In her life,she was active in the Episcopal Church, American Association of University Women, Sigma Phi Epsilon, YWCA, Needlework Guild, and in recent years, the Walnut Creek Senior Center.

She loved to travel and learn new languages. Nothing ever bothered her, no matter the inconvenience. She enjoyed camping and teaching her children to explore and learn about the world around them. She liked to play games and was a crack cribbage and Scrabble player. She was very game to try things she didn't know. She always was interested in people and listened to them and never was judgemental.

She was an inspiration to all with her ever present cheerfulness and tremendous positive attitude to life.

She died quietly at home with her 2 daughters beside her on 26 October 2009 at the age of 95.

Services will be held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 2:00 p.m. Saturday the 21st of November. The church is located at 1924 Trinity Avenue, Walnut Creek. Directions are at: www.stpaulswc.org/map.htm. There will be a reception afterwards in the Parish Hall.

Instead of flowers, we are asking that donation be made to the National Cancer Institute. All donations are handled through the National Cancer Institute Gift Fund. Donation checks or money orders are made payable to the "National Cancer Institute" and sent to:

The Director
The National Cancer Institute
Building 31, Room 11A-16
9000 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20892

A donation letter should be sent along with the check or money order indicating that: the donation,in memory of Edith Patterson Adams, is to be used only for Inflammatory Breast Cancer research at the NCI. The NCI will send an acknowledgement letter of the gift if the name and address of the donor is provided. Dollar amounts are not included in the letter of acknowledgement.

The donation letter should include the following information:
Name (contact person)
Company Name (if applicable)
Street Address
City, State, and ZIP Code
Telephone Number (optional)
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