Patricia Anne Jaffer

Pat Jaffer
December 9, 1929 – September 16, 2023
Patricia Anne (Norton) Jaffer was born to Louis and Leona (Jensen) Norton, children of immigrants, in Larchwood, Iowa at the beginning of the Great Depression. Patricia (Pat) joined the family as the younger of two children, along with her older brother Bill (Louis Jr.). Pat’s father was a farmer and a man instilled with an innate sense of kindness, social wellbeing and justice, a trait he passed on to his children. When Pat was three, the family purchased a farm near Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Pat spent the Depression and World War II years growing up on the family farm, helping tend the livestock and driving horse teams and farm machinery, her responsibilities growing when her brother was sent to fight in Europe. Her mother instilled in Pat a great love of reading and learning. Pat loved to read the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott, and Jane Austen, as well as many others.
Growing up in the 1930’s and ‘40’s was not easy, a time of great upheaval and scarcity of money and resources. As her father instructed, this meant that everyone had to work together to get things done, and to help those with less make it through. Her mother never turned away anyone who stopped at the house willing to work for food, even if there wasn’t work that needed to be done. (Pat always appreciated the stories told in the TV shows “The Waltons” and “Little House on the Prairie” for showing this shared kindness and generosity). This early initiation to the better good created in Pat a calling that lasted throughout her life to ensure that those less fortunate were educated, housed, fed, and given a helping hand. She lived this truth, and made it her legacy.
Pat graduated from high school after the end of WWII, determined to get a college education. She headed off to Wesley College, University of North Dakota, majoring in Philosophy, with an emphasis on social work and religion. She took a hiatus from her studies after her freshman year following the unexpected death of her father in 1948, in order to assist her family. She took a teaching position in a one-room schoolhouse in rural North Dakota, earning money for the family and determined that she would eventually return to her own studies. Pat returned to UND in 1950, and it was there where she met the handsome exchange student from the far-away subcontinent of India, the love of her life, and life-long companion. Pat and Majduddin (Mo) Jaffer were married in 1951, and remained so for nearly 70 years, until Mo’s passing in 2020. The couple welcomed three children while living in North Dakota, and two more after they moved to Oregon.
Pat and family moved to Monmouth, Oregon in 1958, when Mo took a teaching position at Oregon College of Education (now WOU). Pat became well established in the Monmouth and Independence communities, working as a substitute teacher, a vocal member of the United Methodist Church, and also working on her Master’s Degree in Education at OCE, with an emphasis on Special Education. She taught at the Oregon State School for the Deaf in Salem for several years, and many more people got to know her in her later career working at the Stineff Insurance office in Monmouth.
Her forte was activism on behalf of those less fortunate, which she carried with her as a Monmouth City councilor, as a member of the Polk County Planning Commission, as a founding member of the first Monmouth-Independence Community Action Program, as a member of the Polk County Democratic Central Committee, the Association of University Women, the Central Lions Club, and as a Board Member of the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation. The latter organization honored Pat and Mo’s efforts at increasing access to sight and hearing care by making them the first husband and wife to be inducted into the OLSHF Hall of Fame. Her most passionate endeavors on behalf of others were the Methodist Church, the Ella Curran Food Bank and Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
Pat joined the congregation of the Methodist Church in Independence in 1958, buoyed by its emphasis on social welfare and justice, locally and abroad. She remained a member of the church throughout her life, helping to shepherd it through all its iterations, including: construction and move to a new church building in Monmouth; becoming the Wesley United Methodist Church; welcoming the combining of congregations with the Presbyterian Church; and becoming established as “Christ’s Church, Methodist and Presbyterian United.” Throughout this time, she served on multiple church boards and committees, pushing for action on social issues ranging from food insecurity and the lack of support for underprivileged children in the local area to the plight of refugees worldwide.
Pat served as Director of the Ella Curran Food Bank in Independence for over 25 years, and as a Board Member, Coordinator and Treasurer of the non-profit Neighbor’s Helping Neighbors, providing low-income housing in Independence for nearly 30 years. She was fully dedicated to these endeavors.
She often remarked how proud she was at the achievements of the young people who she had gotten to know through supporting those organizations. So much so, that her own grandchildren referred to them as “grandma’s other grandkids.” There were many who were able to stay in school and graduate from high school and from college because they had homes and steady nutrition that would otherwise not have been there. Pat was a two-time recipient of the Monmouth-Independence First Citizen award for her efforts both in community building and on behalf of others.
Pat is survived by her five children: Becky Jay (Jon) of Independence; David Jaffer (Johanna) of San Jose, CA; Kris Yarnall (John) of Silverton; Pat Pecorilla (John) of Eugene; and Danny Jaffer (Renée) of Independence; 12 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Donations in tribute to Pat may be made to the Ella Curran Food Bank (food donations to: 854 N. Main St., Independence, 97351; cash to: PO Box 547, Independence), the Central Lions Club of Monmouth-Independence (P.O. Box 101, Independence), or to the Mo & Pat Jaffer Scholarship Fund, WOU Foundation (345 Monmouth Ave. N, Monmouth, OR 97361).
A memorial for Pat will be held on October 14, at Christ’s Church, 412 Clay St., Monmouth. Service begins at 3:00 PM. All who knew our mother and would like to attend are invited.