[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      GLENS FALLS AREA MOURNS PASSING OF CORRESPONDENT JOAN PATTON

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                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 13, 1994

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the Glens Falls, NY, area I represent and 
call home is mourning the loss of a great lady, Joan Patton.
  She was a woman who's character and intelligence were evident to all 
who knew her. I could go on at great length, but the Glens Falls Post-
Star, a newspaper she graced with her pieces as a correspondent, said 
it perfectly in a recent editorial.
  I enter that editorial in today's Record, and invite all Members to 
join me in conveying our condolences to Joan Patton's grieving family.

          [From the Glens Falls (NY) Post-Star, June 26, 1994]

                       The Loss of a Great Person

       This community has lost a wonderful citizen and 
     enthusiastic chronicler of our past and present, Joan Patton 
     died Friday after a long, valiant fight against cancer. We 
     are saddened, as are so many who knew her.
       Feisty, intelligent, cheerful, direct and courageous, Joan 
     was handed more than her fair share of life's adversities, 
     and she bore them with grace and good humor.
       We knew her as a correspondent for the Post-Star, an 
     avocation she took up late in life.
       In her last days at Glens Falls Hospital, she talked about 
     the joy she had received from her sojourn in journalism. It 
     was an interest she sort of fell into late in life and 
     pursued with enthusiasm and exactitude. She was told how much 
     pleasure she had brought to readers, especially those 
     interested in historical sketches of the area. ``I think what 
     makes me pretty good at it is I don't know how to do it,'' 
     she replied with characteristic candor. ``I'm just curious.''
       Even up, to the end, she took her reporting and writing 
     seriously, enjoying it and using it to keep busy and her mind 
     off cancer. About three weeks ago, as she lay in her hospital 
     bed, she expressed concern that she had not finished a 
     historical piece on Solomon Northrup, who was born a free 
     black man in northern New York before the Civil War and was 
     kidnapped and cast into slavery for 12 years.
       This editor, feigning a scolding tone, told her he wanted 
     the story on his desk in three weeks. She laughed. A few days 
     later, she had her husband, Fred, turn in her laptop computer 
     which she had used for many years to send us stories from her 
     home. It was a signal that she was about to bid us adieu. But 
     along with the machine was a hard copy of the piece or 
     Northrup, not complete as she had wanted, but a nice, well-
     written tale nonetheless. We printed it two Sundays ago.
       Joan kept her personal feelings out of her stories, even an 
     account, never published, of her own experience with cancer. 
     She wrote that article matter-of-factly, explaining that when 
     she underwent breast surgery, ``I didn't feel devastated, or 
     angry. From who knows what source, a positive attitude welled 
     up which continues to sustain me to this day.'' She told how 
     she was waiting to be wheeled into the operating room and the 
     nurses looked solemn, ``and I said, `Smile.' ''
       That was about as close as Joan would come to revealing her 
     personal feelings to the public.
       ``She has no guile,'' Fred noted recently. She always spoke 
     plainly, but without malice or prejudice. Mincing no words, 
     Joan told editors such as this one when she thought he or the 
     paper had gone astray. There were no pretenses.
       Joan grew as a journalist and a writer through the years, 
     noticeably in the last couple of years. But we appreciated 
     even more her great character, her wry sense of humor and her 
     valor. As a fine human being, she set the standard.
       She truly will be missed by those who knew her, including 
     those who knew her only through her writing.

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