Patricia Ann Haak passed away on Jan. 16, 2023, peacefully in the presence of her family, after complications from heart surgery. She was 84.
Pat was born on July 7, 1938 in Oakland, California to Perry and Joan Boring and was their oldest of three daughters. She attended high school and college there, and began her career as a bookkeeper at a hospital in Castro Valley, California.
Pat met the love of her life and lifelong husband Dan Haak, of 63 years when they were neighbors in 1952. They were married in 1960 in Reno, Nevada. They began their family in Milpitas, California, and have two children, their son Danny Haak, and their daughter Denise Haak-Kuenzi.
In 1969, Pat and Dan moved to Silverton, Oregon, where employment took them and where they had lived until 1992. Pat was a devoted and loving wife, mother and grandmother.
Pat loved Silverton, and was a volunteer for the hospital auxiliary, and for Little League women’s auxiliary, where she worked for over 15 years. She kept score, managed the snack shack, helped organize the fundraising campaigns, taught other Moms how to keep score, and worked with so many of the kids in baseball.
After their children graduated from high school, she wanted to go back to work, and became a receptionist at an endodontic office in Salem, Oregon. Within a year she became their office manager, and oversaw the work of more than a dozen employees, for 12 years.
She enjoyed bowling, raising a garden, water skiing and visiting Silver Falls in Silverton. Pat also loved her world travels, which she and Dan enjoyed for many years after retirement to the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, Greece, Holy Land and the South Pacific.
Years later when the children were raised, Dan and Pat found Mill City, Oregon where they made their family home, since 1992, on the quiet and beautiful Santiam River.
Pat had a magnetic personality and a big heart full of warmth; she was a true “Mom” with so much softness, good advice, understanding and forgiveness. Her motto was “if you can’t say nice things about someone, say nothing.”
Pat is survived by her husband, Dan; son, Danny; daughter, Denise; sister, JoAnn Collin; grandson, Chandler and many nieces and nephews. To know her is to love her and she will be terribly missed.
Services will be held at Willamette National Cemetery at 11800 S.E. Mt. Scott Blvd., in Portland, Oregon at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22.
