Waterdown’s Pat Simpson was dedicated to helping people and had a talent for sewing, and she stitched those passions together to create a remarkable life.
She started life as Pat Bytheway of Birmingham, England. She and her family, including her parents and twin sister Jackie (now Donnelly), emigrated to
Canada when the girls were four-and-a-half years old.
The family first lived in Hamilton, and then bought a house in Burlington, which is mostly where the girls grew up. Jackie remembers Pat winning a sewing prize in Grade 8 for making a doll’s dress. Pat and Jackie started a “Polly Pigtail Club” with their friends.
“It was basically focused on doing good, on helping kids, so her helping was right from the very beginning … except when we fought,” Jackie said with a chuckle.
When the girls were little, they used to make a whole hospital out of plasticine clay, and then Pat would pretend to be the nurse. Jackie doesn’t remember Pat ever wanting to be anything else.
“It fit her character, because it was about helping people," she said.
Pat went on to train as a nurse at St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in Hamilton. At that time, student nurses got room and board and earned their tuition by working in the hospital. Because they were identical twins, Jackie describes being able to sneak into Pat’s residence – the sisters just had to make sure the nuns in charge could not see both of them at the same time.
After graduating, Pat moved to Windsor for a year to do a diploma in Nursing Education. Upon her return to Hamilton, she worked as a pediatric nurse at St. Joseph’s and helped train future pediatric nurses. She ended her nursing career as the patient education coordinator at Carlisle Medical Centre.
Pat met her future husband, David Simpson, at a dance at McMaster University, where he was a student at the time. They got married in 1967 and lived in an apartment near the hospital for five years to save their money for a down payment on a house.
Their first house was in Westdale in Hamilton, where their first two children, Mark and Beth, were born. They moved to Waterdown in about 1976 and their son Jake was born within a year. The Simpson family has now expanded to include spouses and six grandchildren.
Sharing her talents
Pat was always very generous with her talents on behalf of the Waterdown community, whether sharing her sewing skills, supporting new mothers or teaching the Red Cross babysitting course.
“All her projects dealt with making health better for people, public health," recalls her friend Ruth Nicholson. "Her whole career was built around that, from babies to seniors.”
In 2019, Pat was recognized with both Flamborough’s and Hamilton’s Senior of the Year awards. She was also honoured for 25 years of volunteering with the Flamborough Red Cross Society.
Pat was also involved in the Waterdown Seniors smocking and knitting club, which made sets of blankets and smocked gowns to donate to families at McMaster Children’s Hospital whose babies were stillborn. She also made many beautiful wall hangings for St. James United Church.
In the mid-1970s, she was instrumental in having the Church’s Vietnamese “boat people” knit the characters for a Christmas nativity scene which is still used today.
Jackie describes Pat’s “amazing” project to raise money and awareness for the Stephen Lewis Foundation's Grandmothers of Steel program, supporting grandmothers in Africa left to raise their grandchildren because their own children died of AIDS. Using genuine fabric from Africa, Pat sewed 100 stuffed elephants which Jackie and others helped make clothes for. Each elephant came with a name and the story of a real African grandmother.
David has fond memories of Pat’s “crazy” plan to get well-known Canadian children’s entertainer Fred Penner to help with a fundraiser. At the time, Pat was president of the Mary Hopkins Home and School Association and was determined to build a playground activity structure.
“She said she was going to do it and she did it,” says David. Not only did Penner come to Waterdown, he stayed at their house and performed a couple of fundraising concerts.
Pat arranged for two architect students from Mohawk College to design the structure, she got lumber donated and pupils’ parents built it under the direction of a parent who was a construction contractor.
Helping through COVID
When COVID hit, Pat spoke to Ruth and said she thought they should be making masks for their families. She found a pattern and got started, but within about an hour she called Ruth back and said “I think we should do this for the community.”
Ruth became the organizer and Pat sewed and led the sewing team.
The mask design evolved as more information became available, with metal nose pieces being added and later three layers including a liner. Pat also designed different styles, such as masks for people with glasses, and a custom design for a man who only had one ear.
The team had 270 orders for masks within the first few hours alone. In total, they made more than 5,000 masks and raised over $22,000 for St. James.
Jackie remembers that Pat “liked to make things and give things; she was constantly giving things.” For example, when Jackie’s daughter Megan was getting married, Pat bought a doll which looked like her niece and proceeded to make the doll a wedding dress to match Megan’s.
Pat’s nursing school roommate, Pat Starling, moved to Millgrove with her husband. She remembers Pat coming to the house to make custom Roman shades for their new kitchen.
Pat would sew ornamental covers for tape measures and give them out to nurses, neighbours and friends, and she would offer to smock a dress for friends’ little girls.
“Her whole life was based on giving,” says Jackie.
Pat passed away on September 5, 2023, leaving behind many memories, smocked dresses, wall hangings, masks and stuffed toys for her family and the community to remember her by.
