Patricia Lynch Heffron (1926-2006)

Patricia Lynch Heffron of Sleepy Hollow for 45 years Patricia Lynch Heffron, 80, died in her home Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006, shortly after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer. There will be no visitation and interment will be private. A memorial service will be held at later date.

Patricia was born July 13, 1926, in Chicago. Reared in Elmhurst, Ill., Patricia moved with her parents to Chicago, where she married her husband on Aug. 30, 1947. They had an especially close relationship and shared their lives through 59 years of marriage.

Patricia was an active lifetime member of the League of Women Voters beginning in Park Forest, Ill., and continuing as she became a charter member of the Carpentersville-Dundee Area League when it was organized in 1970. She chaired a 1974 League study on local land use and growth in Dundee Township that received wide circulation.

Her community service also included 23 years of work on the Sleepy Hollow Plan Commission, participation in the Volunteers in Probation of Kane County, and membership in the Dundee Women’s Club.

Patricia attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Chicago, and Northern Illinois University, from which she graduated in 1967 with a bachelor of science degree in education.

She later was employed for 10 years as a teacher’s assistant in School District 220, Barrington, Ill.

Patricia was an avid reader and a lively conversationalist, with a keen interest in politics and current events.

She was particularly fond of her extended family and their large gatherings, as well as being devoted to her immediate family, and they to her.

Survivors include her husband, Walter S. Heffron; son, Walter Jr. (Jane); daughters, Ann Heffron, Ellen Heffron, Elizabeth Romano (Robert); grandchildren, Jennifer Heffron (Troy Turner), Corrina Cain (Joshua), Walter III (Ashley), Sarah Romano, Emily Romano, Natalie Romano; great-grandchildren, Walter Heffron IV, Martha Chloe Heffron, Jayden Heffron, Annabel Cain; brother John G. Lynch (Lorraine McSherry); and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Patrick C. and Mary Catherine Casey Lynch and her brother, Francis J. (the late Susan A.) Lynch.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society.

Published in Chicago Suburban Daily Herald on Dec. 10, 2006 –