Ann Pate

Ann Elizabeth Pate, 96, a longtime Casa Grande resident, died on Sept. 11, 2012, at Hospice of the Valley, Eckstein Center in Scottsdale.
The memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at J. Warren Funeral Services, Cole & Maud The Gardens Chapel, with Pastor Terry Tarleton officiating. A gathering will follow at The Gardens House.
Mrs. Pate was born Aune Maki on April 11, 1916, in Bisbee and was a daughter of Jack and Sanna Maki. At age 10 she and her family returned to her parents' homeland of Finland for about 18 months, where she learned to read and write Finnish. She returned to Arizona, graduated from high school in Superior, attended beauty school in Phoenix and worked at a salon in Hollywood for a couple of years. She then attended Lamson Business College in Phoenix and got a job working at the Pinal County Courthouse in Florence.
She met Marvin O. Pate of Casa Grande on a blind date and married him on July 21, 1942, in Globe, then joined him in Tallahassee, Fla., where he was serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war they returned to Casa Grande, where he was a cotton and alfalfa farmer and she was a homemaker. He died on Feb. 8, 1982. She was a longtime member of Calvary Baptist Church and, for the past 30 years, First Presbyterian Church. She was a member of Casa Grande Valley Cotton and Agriculture Women, Democratic Women's Club and other service clubs. For the past four years, as she battled dementia, she received loving care from Maria and Zeno Vaida in their Northstar Care Home in Phoenix.
Survivors include a son, Lynn Pate of Casa Grande; a daughter, Janice G. Tarleton of New River; seven grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren. In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by a brother, Arnie Maki, and a sister, Alice Lundgren.