Patterson’s Loss, but Heaven’s Gain
March 12 of this year, brought loss and grief to the Patterson School Alumni and the Foundation. Patterson School Foundation (PSF) Co-founder, Betty A. Patterson Medlin, left behind the cares and woes of this world for the joys of Heaven with her Savior, Jesus Christ.
“Aunt Betty,” was the great granddaughter of Rufus Lenoir Patterson, older brother of the School’s Founder, Samuel Legerwood Patterson, and heir to his property. A bundle of energy and determination, Betty was a treasure trove of information on the Pattersons, world religions, history and politics; she was inspired by her many decades of raising 5 daughters in 8 different countries, accompanying her husband, George, who served in the Army, and the State Department/US AID. Jim Hogan, by finding Betty, saved the Patterson estate from being auctioned off, and together they formed PSF. PSF’s friends and community owe them both much gratitude for their vision, generosity of spirit and tenacity.
Since Samuel Legerwood Patterson and his wife Mary Senseman Patterson had no surviving children of their own, they wanted to establish the Patterson School to nurture and educate many children. Shortly after Mr. Patterson’s death in September 1908, the School opened on September 29, 1909, and operated until 2009. The Pattersons bequeathed their property to the Diocese of the Western North Carolina Episcopal Church to be used for an agricultural and industrial boarding school for boys. They stipulated in their will that if the School ever ceased, their heirs were to then inherit the property. Between legal requests from the Diocese of the Western North Carolina Episcopal Church to allow students of all races and sexes to be admitted, and later to allow some land sales to fiscally afford the School’s continuation, all heirs had released their rights to the Church for the school except Betty.
The Episcopal Church educated thousands of students at Patterson School until 1994. When the Church decided to close due to low enrollment, and to auction the property, Jim Hogan contacted Aunt Betty to let her know that the School was closing and that the property was to be sold. She and her husband, George C. Medlin, joined with Jim and Marie Hogan in 1994 to form the Foundation to preserve the legacy of the Pattersons by claiming the inheritance, and ultimately buying the School and property from the Church.
Having purchased the School, after a year of reorganization, the Foundation reopened the School in 1995 with less than twenty students. From then until 2009, the enrollment increased to over seventy, but many students paid very little tuition and more scholarships were granted than were funded. This inadequate tuition income, combined with the recession of 2008, necessitated the closing of the boarding school on May 26, 2009. Since then, the Foundation has worked hard to offer classes and workshops in Permaculture, organic farming and other regenerative skills, and to start an incubator farm which has helped to launch numerous successful culinary entrepreneurs and farmers, continuing the Pattersons’ legacy of education and service to the community.
So, along with the Hogans, the Medlins are Patterson heroes. Though Aunt Betty lived in Florida, she continued to serve on the Foundation Board until 2011, when she appointed her niece Kitty Gurkin Rosati of NC to assume her permanent seat as her survivor, thus heir board member. Aunt Betty’s joyous fellowship is greatly missed!