Born March 6, 1939
Newark, New Jersey
Died Sept. 20, 2025
Colchester, Vermont
Grace Elizabeth “Betsy” Patten Gardner, who made a long career helping people die well, passed away on September 20 at the McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester. She leaves three children, eight grandchildren, a brother, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, and many dear friends.
Born in New Jersey in 1939, her family moved to Cuttingsville when she was still an infant, and except for short periods in Connecticut and Virginia, she remained in Vermont for the rest of her life. She deeply loved Shrewsbury, where her parents, Arthur and Peggy Patten, were prominent members of the community. She and her siblings John, Judy, Joe, and Will went first to a one-room schoolhouse and then Rutland High School, where she graduated in 1957.
At age three, while in Connecticut, she contracted Polio. She lost the strength in her right leg and gained an intimate knowledge of children’s hospitals. Wearing her brace, and later using canes and a chair, she spent her life striving to not just keep up with her peers, but to surpass them.
She graduated from UVM nursing school in 1961 and went to work in various wards at the DeGoesbriand, including the Psych ward, where she became very good at Ping-Pong. She joined the Visiting Nurse Association in 1976. In 1991 she began working in the Hospice program—her favorite nursing experience—and helped in the early days of Respite House in Williston. She not only touched the lives of hundreds of families, supporting them in the care of their loved ones; she also mentored and inspired a generation of Hospice nurses, physical therapists, home health aides, and volunteers. In 1996 Dr. Jim Madison requested Betsy to be his hospice nurse, and her care and integrity inspired him, Dr. Joan Madison, and her friend Estelle Deane to create the Madison-Deane Initiative to promote hospice care and support the training of hospice nurses. In 2017 a scholarship through Madison-Deane was named in her honor.
Betsy married William Lawrence Gardner in 1962 and together they raised three children: Kate McDaniel (John), Geoff Gardner (Wendy), and Alex Gardner (Rosario) in St. George.
In 2000 her mother Peggy and her ex-husband Larry both died, and feeling the need for a break, she retired and moved to Virginia to be near her daughter and three grandchildren. But she missed Vermont too much, so she returned in 2003 and settled at the Pines on Dorset Street. She immediately became active in the community, joining the Friends of the South Burlington Library, organizing talks through EEE, writing a community newsletter, and bringing in speakers to educate her neighbors on what she enjoyed calling pre-death preparations.
She traveled the country with her elder sister Judy; visited her son Alex in Italy, China, and Tibet; traveled in England with Alex and his family, and again with her nephew Jamie and his wife Marcia. With Judy she went deep into her Brewster and Patten family archives, typing out letters from the early nineteenth century and cataloging multiple boxes of documents that will be donated to the Connecticut State Historical Society. She published a book detailing her parents’ marriage based on the weekly letters they both wrote to their families.
When she received a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in her left pleura in December 2024, she decided to limit treatment to comfort and pain management and accepted her position on the receiving end of Hospice care. Her family and friends helped her remain independent until the end. Special thanks to Jamie and Marcia, her niece Jessie, and brother Will for visiting and running errands when her children were not in town.
She and the family are grateful for the warmth and kindness of her neighbors at the Pines, particularly Diane Coil and Jackie Mastrianni; for the kindness and attention of her nurse Hailey Duquette and the rest of the Hospice team; and to Dara Stimpson, who aided her enormously in bringing her life to a close. She died as she lived, with exceptional organization and grace, surrounded by the love of her family and friends.
