Patricia Margaret Borgerson

1931 - 2020

BORGERSON, Patricia Margaret November 16th, 1931 - January 24th, 2020 Patricia Borgerson passed away peacefully on January 24th, 2020 surrounded by family at her home in Victoria, B.C. She was predeceased by her beloved husband, Malcolm, in 2014; her father Percy Sharpe; her mother Edith Smart; her stepfather David Smart and her brother Ronald Sharpe. She is survived by her five children, Corinne Borgerson Masters (Andre), Laura Borgerson (Ted), Holly Borgerson Calder (Robert), Donald Borgerson (Debra), Judy Borgerson, six grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, sister Joan Sharpe as well as numerous nieces and nephews, and friends. Patricia was born in the city, growing up in Regina in modest family circumstances during the difficult years of the Depression and the Second World War. When she fell in love and married a young farmer in 1952, she became a country woman, living on a farm near Rockglen, in southern Saskatchewan. She adapted to a home without running water and indoor plumbing, and a life as a farmer's wife: meaning that very much of the raising of their five children fell to her, as did the household chores. She learned to stretch a meal on short notice when guests or some of the many Borgerson relatives who lived nearby unexpectedly arrived at dinner time, and she maintained a large - and usually productive - vegetable garden (and when dry spells killed her flower beds, she resourcefully filled them with plastic flowers). She proved herself capable in rescuing a child who fell down the outhouse hole and in shooing away cattle, though it was always with delicate city-girl flicks of the fingers. Patricia was always an active member of the larger rural community, having close friendships with all sorts of people, from war brides adjusting to prairie life to indigenous women living nearby. She was active in the Girl Guide movement, and her intense love of books led her to work for the Rockglen Regional Library. Patricia returned to urban life in 1985, when she and Malcolm left the farm and moved to Saskatoon. There, she worked for several years for a court reporting firm, and then fulfilled a life-long dream by opening, with a daughter, an antiquarian bookstore. For a decade Four Corner Books became a mecca for book-lovers, and Patricia loved few things more than chatting with customers - about books and about them. Her home, as it had been on the farm, was a popular destination for her many friends, whether a place to have coffee or a place to stay for a few days. At the same time, she belonged to Grandmothers 4 Grandmothers, and, always concerned about death with dignity, she lovingly nursed a number of people in their final days. Shortly after Patricia's health forced her to leave bookselling, she and Malcolm moved first to Regina and then to Victoria, BC. Her final years were spent in the loving care of her oldest daughter, in an apartment overlooking the harbour and the ocean, with an expansive view of the sky and within earshot of the raucous gulls. In her heart, though, she was still a prairie girl: her oceans had waves of wheat and prairie grass, her skies were the living blue of Saskatchewan, and her bird calls were the always bright and optimistic warbles of the meadowlarks. A celebration of Pat's life will be held at a later date.