Patricia Anne “Pat” Garris, 79, of Butler, passed from this world Saturday. She was surrounded by her loving daughters and New Haven Court family.

Born March 8, 1938, she was the daughter of the late Willard G. and Margaret R. Oew Spencer.

Patricia grew up in Pittsburgh, where she attended Peabody High School. She was always an avid ice skater who eventually joined the Ice Capades Training School in her teens.

She married her husband, the late Ronald D. Garris, on April 2, 1960. They settled in Butler, where they raised their three daughters.

Pat worked and retired from the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV in 2000, where she worked as a teaching assistant in special education. She served 26 years, 15 of those at Clarence Brown Special School and the other 11 at Irene Stacy children’s partial hospitalization program.

Patricia started to cross stitch and do other forms of needlework in the 1980s. She was so captured by the craft that she began filling the walls of her 10-room home with keepsakes to be passed on to family and friends.

Another of her passions was animals, especially dogs. Pat raised many dogs during her life including her two beloved large white Samoyeds. Tasha and Nikki were the catalyst for her becoming a member of the Butler Dog Training Association. She served as the club secretary for many years in addition to “showing” her sweet white bears at the Samoyed Dog Club of Pittsburgh. Her last sweet white baby, Louie, a Bichon Frise, now lives with her daughter Laura.

She volunteered and trained to be a hospice worker at Good Samaritan Hospice in Cabot after losing her husband, Ron, who had been a patient there for a brief but life-altering six days in 2009.

Patricia is survived by her daughters, Pamela Lynn (Daryl) Souzer of Sanford, Maine, Tracy Jo (Roger) Reeb of Centerville, Ohio, and Laura Lee Spencer (Donald) Yasinsky of Butler. Her six grandchildren and two great-granddaughters, Jason (Tabitha) Souzer, Ashley Souzer, Adam Reeb, Benjamin Reeb, Emily Yasinsky and Alexander Yasinsky, Riley Souzer and Olivia Blanton, will carry her spirit with them.

Pat was preceded in death by her husband, Ronald; her parents; her sister, Barbara Moody; and her young great-granddaughter, Avery Jean Lane.

GARRIS — Friends of Patricia Anne “Pat” Garris, who died Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017, will be received from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Geibel Funeral Home, 201 E. Cunningham St., Butler. Funeral services will follow at 7 p.m. at the funeral home. The Rev. Jim Lewis will officiate. Entombment will take place in the Chapel of Devotion Mausoleum of the Butler County Memorial Park.