Patricia Lea

From Patricia Lea’s Obituary, August 1, 2018

Patricia Lea, 83, on January 28, 2018, in Mount Joy, Pa.

Pat was born Patricia Lea Olson on March 15, 1934, in Battle Creek, Mich., the only child of Lillian and Alvin Olson. Brought up by her mother and grandparents, Pat felt unwanted and alone, nurtured only by the strict grandfather….

She loved learning and school, graduating from Battle Creek High School in 1952 and from Michigan State University with high honors in 1956. In college, she married Richard McIlnay….. She marched in 1961 with Women Strike for Peace and in the 1963 Washington march where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

In 1964 she and Richard divorced. She moved to New York City with her children, teaching English at Brooklyn Friends School beginning in 1968. She worshiped with Friends in Greenwich Village and became a Quaker in 1969. Jazz gave her a new kind of life and a new transcendence. She spent time with Kenny Dorham, a jazz composer and trumpeter, whom she called the great love of her life.