Patsy Helen Eversole

Patsy Helen Eversole

June 9, 1933 - May 28, 2022

SHELBYVILLE - Patsy Helen Eversole, 88, of Shelbyville, IL, passed away on May 28, 2022, at St. John's Hospital in Springfield.

Patsy was born on June 9, 1933, to Roy and Gladys Martz. She was a graduate of Shelbyville High School, and while she did not go on to college, she was an avid, lifelong reader and had a brilliant mind. She married Joe Eversole on July 7, 1951, and they had four children, Pam, Teresa, Bud, and Tony.

The child of a coal miner, Patsy was devoted to the labor movement throughout her life. As a clerical worker in the Shelbyville FHA office, Patsy organized fellow workers for improvements in their working conditions. Her work as an activist took her to the nation's capital to advocate for her fellow clerical workers, and with the grit, optimism, and spunk for which she was well known, Patsy helped win improvements for her fellow workers. For Patsy, there was no more noble goal for one's life than working together with others to make a more just, fairer, and kinder world.

Patsy was an enthusiastic collector of antiques, and enjoyed traveling around central Illinois and beyond both buying and selling pieces at various shows. Near the end of her career, she started an auction business with her youngest son, Tony, and later in life was a fixture at her daughters' estate sale business. She never met a stranger, only friends, and she had a way of making you feel seen and heard. A joyful, young soul to the end, she called all her friends, "kid."

More than anything else, Patsy loved her family and took special pride in her great grandsons. Being a "mema," she would have enthusiastically said, was her favorite "job." To know Patsy was to have a friend. To be loved by Patsy was to have the fiercest, kindest advocate for life. She stood beside those she loved. She gave us shade. She carried us, despite her diminutive frame, when life was hard. No one loved like her, with such sincerity and such beautiful hope.

Patsy leaves behind her two daughters: Pam Newby and Teresa Boehm (Gerry); and son, Bud; two grandsons: Josh (Beleena) Boehm and Chris (Rachel Smith) Boehm; and three great-grandsons: Payton Bryant, Brody and Brady Boehm.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her brother, Emmett; her husband, Joe; son, Tony; and son-in-law, John Newby.

There will be a Celebration of Life for Patsy held at the Corps of Engineers Lake Shelbyville Visitor Center on June 24, 2023, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

"Life is real! Life is earnest!/ And the grave is not the goal/ Dust thou art, to dust returnest/ Was not spoken of the soul" - Longfellow; my grandmother's favorite poet. Your soul was never dust. It was, and still is, light. Love you, CB.