Patricia Ann Adkins, 90, of Grafton, passed away on Friday, Jan. 5, 2024, at the Mon Health Medical Center in Morgantown. She was born in Grafton, along with her twin sister, Phyllis Ann, on Dec. 1, 1933, to the late Roy Zelot Burnside and Audree Manley Burnside.
Patricia graduated from Grafton High School Class of 1951. Upon graduation, her and her twin sister were recruited to work a year in Washington, D.C., at the FBI in the division that examined fingerprints. After returning to West Virginia, she married her fellow high school graduate, Brooks M. Bartlett, a student at West Virginia University where she worked in the clerical office of the WVU Main Library. There she accomplished eliminating the backlog in cataloging and keeping it updated.
After the birth of her son in 1954, her husband and her separated and later divorced. She and her son moved back to Grafton where she was employed as part of the clerical staff of Grafton Apparel on Riverside Drive. She received training in garment industrial engineering from Manhattan Shirt Inc. and became the industrial engineer (1968-75) at the Grafton plant and at Salisbury Manufacturing (1973-83) in Salisbury, Md. There she met and married a widower and State Farm Insurance Agent, Levin Adkins in 1982.
After her husband’s demise in 2011, she moved to the neighborhood in Sebastian, Fla., where her sister Phyllis lived. She resided there until 2017 when she moved, due to the increasing inability to care for herself, to Beulahland Assisted Living near Grafton. She resided there the remainder of her life, always referring to it as home.
The first church she was a member of was the Grafton United Brethren Church (UB) later (Trinity United Methodist) which was her family’s home church. The last church she was a member of was the First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian, Fla. Following the example of her husband, Levin, she joined and became a life-long member of a Christian organization, The Gideons, which is devoted to donating Holy Scripture and propagating the Biblical faith.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her sisters, Ada Elizabeth Bell, Ellen Louise Tingler, Mary Alice Deakins, and Phyllis Ann Bowman Keith; brothers-in-law; niece, Jo Etta Bell; and two nephews, Roy Keith Bell and Stephen Blake Deakins.
She is survived by one sister, Dorothy Jean Drainer Wildey of Vero Beach, Fla.; one son, David Bartlett of Morgantown; two stepdaughters, and their families, Betty Jean Latourney (Bill) of Hebron, Md., and Cynthia Sue “Cindy” McEarchern (Ed) of Hanover, Pa. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews.
Special thanks is extended to the staff of Beulahland Assisted Living and the Intensive Care Unit of Mon General Hospital for their care and consideration.
A funeral service will be conducted at the Donald G. Ford Funeral Home, 950 George Washington Hwy, Grafton, at 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 12. Friends and family will begin gathering at 10 a.m. Interment will follow at Woodsdale Memorial Park. The Donald G. Ford Funeral Home is honored to serve the Bartlett Adkins Family during their time of need.
Condolences:
www.donaldgfordfuneralhome.com
