Dr. Marian Williams Patton, born Marian Bernice Williams passed away August 23, 2021 in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Patton was born in Philadelphia March 18, 1935 and was the eldest of Crawford and Mildred Williams’ three children. She and her two brothers grew up in North Philadelphia where she remained until graduating from Girls High School and entering the US Navy.
After leaving the Navy, Patton received her Baccalaureate degree from Temple University in Philadelphia.
Patton then taught in the Darby-Colwyn School District just outside of Philadelphia. Later, she joined the faculty of Community College of Philadelphia and earned her Master’s Degree in Education, also from Temple University.
In 1978, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to join the faculty of Tennessee State University’s Department of Dental Hygiene and in 1981 returned to Philadelphia to commence her coursework for her Ph.D. in Continuing Adult Education at Temple University.
After the death of her dear friend, mentor, and colleague, Elzer Chandler, she became head of the Department of Dental Hygiene, and for a short time was interim Dean of Tennessee State University’s School of Allied Health. She worked on accreditation teams around the United States and consulted on start-up dental hygiene programs for universities in the United Arab Emirates.
She retired in 2013 and remained active with church activities including the choir at First Baptist Church of Capitol Hill, Nashville’s annual MLK Day Mass choir, her sorority Zeta Phi Beta – Beta Delta Zeta Chapter, and volunteering with Better Decisions, as a mentor to women at the Tennessee Women’s Prison in Nashville.
After retirement, she continued to indulge one of her great joys: travel. Her son inherited her wanderlust and she was able to travel with him overseas twice: once meeting him in London with their cousin Patricia Crawford and dear family friend/surrogate son and brother Pacer Lynn Smith at the end of a summer he had spent in Europe and when he took her to Paris for her 79th birthday and chaperoned her, her best friend Miriam Currie and friend Wilia Evans around Paris and Milan. In all she set foot on five of seven continents during her life.
She is survived by her loving son, Clarence E. Patton, Jr., her brothers, Crawford Williams and Donald Williams, her sisters-in-law, Henrietta and Lillian, her nieces, Lynn Williams, Bernadette Mahoney, Ethel Louis, and Deena Wilson, nephew, Bilaal Williams, great-niece, Ashley Hairston, and cousins, Olga Nelson, Brenda Wharton, Linda Fisher, and Patricia Crawford.
She is bereaved by countless friends, extended family, chosen family, former colleagues and students, and one very special little girl on Chapel Avenue in East Nashville.
Funeral Services will be held Monday, August 30, 2021 at the DeBaptiste Funeral Home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and a Memorial Service will likely be held at a later date in Nashville.
In lieu of flowers, please plant a tree and/or make donations to the American Cancer Society, Planned Parenthood of Middle and Eastern Tennessee, or the United Negro College Fund.
