Patricia Lynn Chavis

Patricia Lynn Chavis passed away on Sunday, October 17, 2021. She was known to everyone as Pat, or Miss Pat. She is very much loved, and will be greatly missed. Our hearts are broken. She is preceded in death by her parents, Lawrence Wesley Rowland and Doris Virginia Rowland, her aunt Mary June Coombs, her uncle Charles Dee Bartley, and her brother Robert Wesley Rowland. She is survived by her husband, Richard Warren Chavis, her brother David Lawrence Rowland, her son Tom Warren Chavis, her daughter Jennifer Chavis Dentry, her son-in-law David Milner Dentry, numerous nieces and nephews, and her grandchildren, Nathan Milner, Eliza Virginia, Milo Warren, Henry Carpenter, and Sadie Patricia Dentry. Pat was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but she spent most of her life in Pensacola, including some early years in a house on Zaragoza that is one of the oldest surviving wood-frame buildings in the city. Pat graduated from Pensacola High School. She met her husband Richard at Central Baptist Church, and that is where they got married in 1966. Pat and Richard celebrated their fifty-fifth wedding anniversary this past January. Pat was a ray of sunshine to everyone who knew her. She always wanted to hear how you were doing, and to make sure you were okay. She loved to be around people and she loved to help out. After her children were grown, she spent a number of happy years dabbling at things that let her do just that. She was a Sunshine Volunteer at West Florida Hospital, which led her to work for a couple of physicians as a medical assistant. She worked at a sandwich shop, which was perfect for her. She loved to clear the tables and talk to all the customers. She especially enjoyed volunteering for Manna Food Bank. Her favorite part was riding along in the van as it traveled far and wide to places where she could meet people and help them get food. Her favorite things after her family were the beach, books, and cats. The strays of the neighborhood seemed to pass word around that her house was the place to go for love and food. She cared for them as well as her own cats, who were numerous through the years. If she couldn't be at the beach with Richard, watching the herons or soaking up the sun, she was happiest on her porch full of plants, reading a good book with a cat or two on her lap, after she made sure the birds were fed. Her grandchildren were a great joy to her. She had infinite patience, and just loved being with them and passing on traditions that she started with her children. She knew that little kids love a washtub of water in the front yard and finger painting on the porch in the nude. She always made sure there was a silver dime in the black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, and you surely had to get under the bed on your birthday if Granny P was around. She was sentimental, funny, superstitious, thoughtful, soft, stubborn, big-hearted, considerate, hospitable, and loyal. Her mood depended on whether Alabama won or lost. She made cookies and left them in the mailbox for the letter carrier. She collected friends on Facebook here and there and everywhere, and loved to tag you if she saw something she thought you would like. She was terribly scared of hurricanes, which are something you can't escape in Pensacola, but she wouldn't have dreamed of being anywhere but home, where she could have her door open to anyone who needed her. She will be cremated and her remains will be spread on her favorite beach. Remember her with us, her smile, her hugs and the happiness she gave to everyone who was lucky enough to know her.

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Patricia Lynn Chavis

August 24, 1944 - October 17, 2021