Patricia Jennings. (Courtesy photo)
Patricia Jennings, longtime Harvard resident, decided “it is time to wind this thing down.” She died June 29, 2026, at 10:05 p.m. under the strawberry moon, serenaded by Pastor Sean Witty’s guitar and surrounded by family and friends.
Born Patricia Ann Head on July 3, 1936, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to Don Head and Ina Stevenson Head, Pat was seven years old when her mother died. She was sent to live on her aunt Vera and uncle Leon’s horse farm in Minnesota where she rode a pony to a one-room schoolhouse and learned the necessity of helping out to keep the farm life humming.
She subsequently made her way to another family farm where she helped her grandma Della in the kitchen making the big breakfast and midday meals for the farm hands. When her father remarried her stepmother, Phylis, Pat returned to Arlington, Virginia, where her father was a radar expert working in Washington, D.C. Her young teenage years were spent riding bikes and playing with her friends around the Lincoln Memorial with her dog Taffy always at her side.
A 1954 graduate of Washington & Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia, she applied to Bucknell University including a personal note saying, “I want to come to your school and will be there in the coming fall.” She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1958 and then achieved her master’s degree in psychology from Harvard University Extension School in 1999.
She married Stephen Anthony Jennings in 1958 and settled in Kendall Park, then Colonia, New Jersey. Pat took a job teaching high school English in Princeton, New Jersey, and by 1962 had two daughters, Lynn and Della. The family moved to Scotland in 1965 for Steve’s job with Singer Corporation, which left a formative impression on Pat, further igniting her love of people, travel, and adventure.
In 1968 the family moved back to the states and settled in Harvard, which truly became her home where she raised her family and invested herself in the community. She and her good friend Sally Kennedy started their own catering business, Creative Catering, after providing a luncheon for a friend desperate for party planning help. Creative Catering evolved to include large and small weddings and special events. One highlight was a dinner for visiting dignitaries at the French Consulate in Boston.
In 1992 Pat and Steve moved to New Boston, New Hampshire, for 15 years where Pat made close and enduring friends she kept for the remainder of her life. In 2006 Pat moved back to Harvard to enjoy life near her daughter Della and granddaughters Patrice and Meaghan, who were her pride and joy.
Her community contributions in Harvard were extensive and memorable. In 1972, along with Audrey Ball and Beeps Clark, Pat organized the first League of Women Voters Flea Market, which remains a yearly highlight in the town.
Pat’s family was her top priority. She was an exuberant and inspiring leader—her home world was Harvard but her reach was long. She never tired of traveling, learning, and planning events both large and small, making friends wherever she landed.
She leaves her daughters Lynn Jennings and partner David Silk of Portland, Maine, Della Jennings and partner Craig Kilmer of Harvard; granddaughters Patrice Antonia Jennings of Washington, D.C. and Meaghan Jennings Mitchell of Harvard; sisters-in-law Sue Jennings and wife Diane Mazur of Ashland, Oregon, and Marian Brusberg of Simsbury, Connecticut; niece Elaine Jennings Sabatino and husband Scott; nephew George Jennings and wife Veronica and their children Andrew, Nathan, Luke, Tim, and Grace; as well as many many adoring friends.
Services welcoming all will be held at 10 a.m. July 25, at the Congregational Church of Harvard with a Celebration of Life immediately after at 11 Fairbank Street. At Pat’s request, anyone attending the service should wear blue, her favorite color.