Patricia Isabel Dettmer

Patricia Isabel York was born on May 25, 1933, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Gertrude Idelle (Main) York and Alan Wheeler York. She graduated from Hall High School with honors in West Hartford, Connecticut, while also acquiring an unusual talent on the piano. Her choices for college were Julliard or Wellesley. She chose Wellesley, majored in economics and political science, graduating in 1955.

It was at Wellesley that she met her future husband, Robert Gerhart Dettmer, who was attending MIT. They married on August 20, 1955, shortly after which he attended Harvard Business School. During the two years he was attending HBS, Patricia worked at the Harvard Observatory on the orbit team, part of the project to put the first US satellite into orbit.

Upon his graduation she and her husband moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she became a stock portfolio analyst at National City Bank, later gaining experience as a bond trader. As their first child came along, she left the bank assuming her role as a mother. After several years, the family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, beginning a series of moves to different cities as her husband accepted positions of increasing responsibility. With the three children in school, she revived her interest in tennis and ended up with many club trophies.

In 1976, when her husband became an officer of PepsiCo, the family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, just a few minutes from the company’s headquarters. As the children left to go to private school and college, Patricia resumed her focus on tennis and, also, became interested in bridge. By the time she left Greenwich, she had become a Silver Life Master. She traveled with her husband to many different countries around the world enjoying a large variety of cultures.

After his retirement in 1996 they bought a boat, a 72-foot motor yacht, which Patricia named “Coquette”. For ten years they enjoyed numerous trips up and down the East Coast and to the Bahamas. In 2016 they decided to sell Coquette and buy a house in Palm Beach, Florida, where they enjoyed the many available activities immensely. The last three years of her life she unfortunately contracted Lewy Bodies dementia and died on June 12,2023 at the age of 90. She will be buried in West Hartford, CT where she and her husband will rest next to her parents.

She is survived by her husband, three children, Stephanie, Constance, and Robert Brantley and eight grandchildren.

A visitation will be held on Monday, June 19, 2023 from 4-6 pm at the Quattlebaum Funeral, Cremation and Event Center, 5411 Okeechobee Blvd, West Palm Beach, FL 33417.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.quattlebaumFH.com for the Dettmer family.