Patricia Ann Armitage

Patricia Ann (Pat) Armitage passed away on Friday, March 7, 2025, at age 91, of complications following a stroke. She was born July 8, 1933 in Belleville, Arkansas, the fourth and last child of Kermit and Ernestine Sugg. At age 7, she and her family moved to Russellville, Arkansas, where she grew up. As a child, she loved being outdoors, climbing trees, and riding horses. In high school she was a cheerleader, prom queen, and football queen.

In 1951, in her first year of college at Arkansas Tech, she met a handsome quarterback named Robert Armitage at a sorority party, and it was love at first sight. They married in June, 1952. Pat and Bob started their married life in Arkansas, but soon began moving often for job opportunities, heading first to Texas, then Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Connecticut, back to Texas, and finally to Kansas. During that time, they raised three children, Linda Coyle (Dennis), Shelly Stalnaker (Thurl) and Robert Armitage (Christiane).

Pat held a variety of jobs, mostly as a preschool teacher, but also as an usherette for the Houston Colt .45s baseball team, a Fuller Brush sales associate, and a promotional vendor for Purina pet foods. She and Bob loved square dancing (including travel to multiple state and national conventions), playing golf, and traveling to new places both here and abroad. They were active in the Methodist church, with Bob leading Sunday school classes and Pat organizing outings and monthly get-togethers. Pat was an avid gardener, always scratching out a patch of dirt in every yard for her tomatoes and other assorted vegetables, but had little success encouraging her family to eat the harvests.

After Bob’s death in 2005, Pat kept busy delivering Meals on Wheels, playing cards with friends, and swimming at the YMCA. Friends remember her as a sociable extrovert who was always on the go in her little red car, even if it was just to get a late night ice cream cone with a friend. She loved ice cream, hamburgers, frozen Cokes, little Mandarin oranges, and (like a true southern girl) Dr. Pepper. While not a gourmet cook, she made great fried chicken and delicious from-scratch bread and rolls. Her go-to (and popular) dessert for potluck dinners were pecan tassies.

In 2022, she moved to Somerford House assisted living in Frederick, Maryland near her daughter Linda. Pat was preceded in death by her husband; her parents; her three siblings, Frances Binkley, Kenneth, and Carroll; and one grandchild, Creighton Stalnaker.

She is survived by her three children and five grandchildren, Kevin Coyle, Erin Coyle, Alix Stalnaker, Sam Armitage, and Brandon Armitage (Mary).

No public services will be held. She will be interred in Olathe Memorial Cemetery in Olathe, Kansas next to her beloved Bob.