Pat H. Lunn

Pat Lunn was born on August 25, 1922 in Madill, Oklahoma. She was the only child of Joe and Eddie Hannan. Her father was the president of the local First National Bank. She lived her entire childhood in Madill. After graduating from high school, Pat attended Texas State College for Women (now Texas Woman’s University) in Denton, Texas for a year, but transferred her sophomore year to the University of Oklahoma. She majored in English and pledged the women’s sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma. She graduated with honors in 1945. Pat met her husband, Dick, at OU. The two dated that first year of 1942, but soon Dick enlisted in the United States Army and later served as a Lieutenant in the Pacific during World War Two, where he saw combat in Okinawa. Just before he was shipped overseas, Pat and Dick were married on May 25, 1945. In his absence, Pat worked at KOMA in Oklahoma City. She wrote Dick regularly and he returned home safely. After the war, Dick entered law school at OU. Just before his second year, he was badly burned when a car carburetor he was working on exploded. To help Dick, Pat became one of the first women to attend law school classes at OU in 1947, where she took shorthand in all his classes. She transcribed her notes and brought them to Dick’s hospital room. Dick was able to continue to take classes and graduate Order of the Coif, which represented the top of his class. Pat and Dick first moved to Tulsa, where Joe was born at the beginning of 1950, and Bill was born later in 1951. The family then moved for three years to Oklahoma City, then three years to Dallas, but ultimately came to Muskogee in 1958. Dick started a private law practice, initially with Pat as his secretary. Both boys attended Muskogee Public Schools. Pat was a loving mother, but believed in hard work, self-discipline, the value of education and expected her boys to do well. Joe became a professor of history at the University of Michigan and Bill became a lawyer in Tulsa. As the boys left home, Pat went back to college and earned a Master’s Degree in Education. She became a sophomore English teacher at Muskogee High School in 1969, where she taught thousands of students in her classes for the next 25 years. Pat was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, where she sang in the choir. She loved to play bridge and travel. Dick died in 1978, but she continued to live in the family house until she died of pneumonia on May 18, 2016 just short of her 94th birthday. She is survived by Joe, of Detroit, Michigan, and Bill; Joe’s two daughters, Sarah Leese of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Laura Lunn of Denver, Colorado; and a great grandchild, Lydia Leese, of Ann Arbor. Three other grandchildren, Kathryn, Adrienne, and Michael Lunn of Tulsa, died as teenagers in 2007. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in memory of Pat to the Lunn Children’s Educational Foundation, through St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. A memorial service is scheduled for 3:30 p.m., Monday afternoon, May 23, 2016, in the Rowsey Memorial Chapel at St. Paul’s Church.

Pat H. Lunn

August 25, 1922 - May 18, 2016