Patricia Marie O'Shaughnessy Todd

Patricia Marie Todd was laid to rest beside her husband Charles Evans Todd following a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, October 6, 2025. She had passed away June 2, 2024 at her daughter's home in Saint Louis at the age of 104, where she had lived since 2018.

When Patricia O'Shaughnessy sailed to the Territory of Hawaii in the first of many ocean voyages, she was accompanied by her father Jack, the son of Irish immigrants John and Mary, and the ranking master sergeant at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma where Pat was born on September 15, 1919. They arrived at Jack's new station Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu in 1936. Pat enrolled as a senior at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa. Her closest Ft. Sill childhood friend Margaret Black and her new friend Ellen Neville, both military daughters, were also enrolled. The three girls graduated together in June 1937. In August 1938 Pat returned stateside to visit her mother Viola, younger sister Trudie and stepfather Thomas (Tommy) Wyllsey, who was serving at the Army Air Corps training base near Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.

Pat met her future husband Charles Todd in Hawaii where he had been stationed with the Hawaiian Division of the 35th Infantry at Schofield Barracks since 1936, but their paths did not cross during Pat's first visit to the islands. Pat returned to Hawaii with Vi and Tommy in 1939, living with them at Carter Gate military family residences. Already experienced in photo processing, Pat got a job at a photography studio in nearby Wahiawa. That studio is where she first met private first-class Charles Evans Todd of Woodbury, Tennessee when he came into the studio.

When they married in April 1940, Pat and Charles planned a civilian life stateside and left for the state of Washington in August of that year. But the world turned upside down with the attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu December 7, 1941. Charles had hoped to work as an artist but instead entered the civil service until he was again called to military duty, attending Officers Candidate School in 1945. His career over the next two decades took the Todd family to postwar Germany, Japan and France. Pat became an Army wife and their daughters Sandy and Terry became Army brats, moving to different posts every few years. All was new in a fast-changing world but Pat never complained. She even home schooled the girls whenever necessary.

Throughout their lives Pat and Charles continued to photograph the family and each other. They adapted whenever the technology changed. Charles had bought Leica cameras for himself and Pat in 1947 in Germany and set up a photo studio in the basement of their home where they developed and printed their black and white film. By the 1990s they had begun using digital cameras, computers and printers.

In the 1960s, Pat worked as a secretary then as an administrative assistant at the university the girls attended. Charles had five different career paths between 1937 and 1980 when he finally retired from the last one. They then took up traveling continually, sometimes changing their abode, often visiting family and exploring sites across the country as inspiration for Charles's paintings and for more photographs. A vast photo and artwork treasury exists of places they visited: mills, historical sites, National parks, theme parks, interstate highways, backroads and byways of America, Puget Sound by ferry, and Route 66 (the Mother Road).

Pat and Charles always did things in tandem. They traveled together unless Charles was stationed elsewhere in advance of his family joining him. They didn't have hobbies that separated them. Pat taught Charles to play Bridge expertly. Charles taught Pat to play golf. Pat taught Charles to bake and frost a cake. Charles taught Pat to use computers. They visited family all through their lives, sometimes to help them move, or to comfort them, to celebrate births, birthdays, weddings and holidays, or simply to say hello again. Some may have their own special memories and photos of and by Pat to share with each other. All remember she was unfailingly kind, gentle, outgoing, understanding and protective. Pat made new friends quickly and kept them for life. She is forever beloved, this beautiful Irish rose.
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Patricia was preceded in death by her husband Charles, her sister Trudie Long, her daughter Sandra Elaine Corey, and her son-in-law Richard Ferl. She is survived by her daughter Theresa Ferl; her three grandsons Matthew (Sandi) Corey, Michael (Jolisa) Corey, and Jeffrey (Brittany) Corey; her great-grandchildren Samantha, Kevin, Scarlett and Victoria; and nieces Frances Costigan and Barbara Rodgers.

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