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Bernice Patterson was my Great Aunt. She died in the spring of 2008 at the age of ninety-four, after nearly a decade with Alzheimer’s Disease. I began this project as a way to get to know Bernice, and to portray a glimmer of perseverance that remained as she lost all traces of memory and control.

When I began making portraits of Bernice half a year before she died, she would often perk up, look at me with a smile, and touch the camera with childlike fascination. Several times she sang fragments of songs from her youth, as if being photographed made her feel like the star of a musical. I took this as a sign of her consent, and a sense of propriety remained while photographing her through the months of steady decline, until the last images were taken hours before her death.

 

 

 

 

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The Obituary of Bernice Patterson, 1914-2008

 


Bernice Patterson was born in LaGrange, Illinois, on May 17, 1914. She spent most of her life in LaGrange, attending public school, junior college, and business school there. Her career was as the Executive Assistant to the President of Abex Corporation, with whom she also had a lasting friendship.

Bernice lived at home with her mother and father, whom she cared for until the end of their long lives. Her brother, Jack Patterson, graduated from college and then served as a Navy engineer during World War II. Bernice’s high school sweetheart was killed in World War II and she never married.

When her parents passed away, Bernice moved to Bethlehem Woods, a retirement community in LaGrange run by the Catholic Church. She remained an avid churchgoer and lived a simple, independent life. She had a passion for travel, went on frequent European cruises with friends, and took several trips to Germany with her dear friend, Bob Jenson.

In her mid eighties, Bernice developed Alzheimer's and moved to Rogerson House and then a hospital in Boston to be close to her immediate family. She remained a bright, cheery person even as her memory faded. She was visited frequently by her devoted niece, Lindsay Allison, and the rest of Lindsay’s family, Blake, Morgan, and Samuel. The last years of her life were comfortable, and she died peacefully at the age of ninety four.

 

 

 

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