Fern "Pat" Fowler

Fern “Pat” Fowler

December 5th, 1936, was one for the books.  That’s the day Fern Mae Harmon came into this world kicking and screaming.

In the Webster's Dictionary next to the word “Feisty” You can find a picture of Fern staring a hole right through you. Ever since she was young, she was a force to be reckoned with.  She loved to dance and wore out many dancing shoes that were way too small for her size 9 feet. When she retired her dancing shoes, she was all in on the Vegas Slots, Bowling Strikes, and her favorite pastime, terrorizing new people at the bingo hall who dared sit in the regular’s seats.  You could say she was a real “Queen B(ingo)” and new players learned the hierarchy at the Bingo Hall with the quickness.

You knew when she was mad at you with her deafening silence and refusal to acknowledge your existence.  Her husband Larry knew that silence all too well.  And if you heard the sucking of the teeth, you better run, because she was about to tear you…. Well, you get the picture.

Fern was true to herself and didn’t take any bull from anyone. She was brought up by one tough Momma, and she taught her Daughters, Son, Grand-Daughters, Grand-Son and Great GrandBabies that you need a little(for some of us, a lot of) bullheadedness in this world. So those of you that know us, it’s all her fault, it’s in our DNA.

However, for all of that feistiness we speak of, she exuded that same energy with the way she loved her Children, Grand-Children and Great Grand-Children.  If we wanted it, we got it, probably in her signature wrapping paper “the black garbage bag”, and if we needed it, we received it even faster.  There was nothing Fern wouldn’t do for the ones she loved. Even those who weren’t related to her by blood, she was their “Granny” too, and she loved them, and they loved her.   The world is a bit bleaker now that the Matriarch of our family is gone, but she raised us to be tough as nails, and give ‘em hell, and that’s what we’re all going to continue to do.

Fern was stampeded at the pearly gates by her husband Larry, who she’s probably already not talking to for some unknown reason to him, her son Bobby, her sister Stevie, Brothers Oakley and Melvin, Son-in-Law Ron, her Mother Pearl and Father Kelly.