Patricia Ann (nee Kilsdonk) Coles went home to the place that Jesus prepared for her (John 14:2) on March 17, 2018, after a brave four-year battle with brain cancer.<\/p>\n
Born in Appleton, Wisconsin to Norbert Francis and Mary Frances (Vander Wielen) Kilsdonk on July 31, 1953, the fourth of ten children, Patsy was raised in the Dutch community of nearby Little Chute.\u00a0 She graduated from St. John\u2019s High School in 1971, then attended and graduated in 1975 from Edgewood College in Madison with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Studies, where she was class president.\u00a0 She continued her education in graduate programs at Marquette University in Milwaukee and Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.<\/p>\n
Pat met her husband Dave at Marquette, where she worked as a financial aid administrator and he was a Navy ROTC instructor.\u00a0 Together, they raised two children, Shaula and David Patrick.<\/p>\n
Pat was a gifted artist and writer.\u00a0 She won \u201cBest in Show\u201d for her submission to a local art contest and presented gifts of portraits and other artwork to family members and friends.\u00a0 She is listed in the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) for a small role she had in a film created by students at Trinity, where she worked in the financial aid department.\u00a0 She loved to design, create, and paint sets and backdrops for Vacation Bible School and various plays and programs at Packard Road Baptist Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including a life-sized backdrop for Da Vinci\u2019s \u201cLast Supper\u201d for a living Last Supper Maundy Thursday observance. More recently, she was a guest columnist for the Kenosha News\u2019s \u201cMy Turn\u201d, writing her column for almost a year.<\/p>\n
Pat\u2019s proudest accomplishments were those of her children, whom she raised with her husband mostly in Ann Arbor.\u00a0 A devoted mother, she homeschooled her children through middle school, while working as a proofreader for Servant Publications, and as a kindergarten aide, academic advisor and Bible teacher at Washtenaw Christian Academy in the neighboring community of Saline.\u00a0 Pat also taught Sunday school at Packard Road Baptist Church for many years to almost all age groups, her favorite being young singles, and rejoiced over wedding announcements and visits that she received from her former students over the subsequent years.<\/p>\n
In 2003 God graciously and providentially returned her to full-time work exactly where she left off, as a financial aid administrator at Spring Arbor (Michigan) University.\u00a0 She rejoined her husband in Pleasant Prairie in 2005 after a brief work-forced separation, and joined the financial aid staff at Carthage College in Kenosha.\u00a0 She later joined the financial aid staff at world-renowned Trinity International University, where she served as the Director of Financial Aid from 2010 to 2014, when she was diagnosed with her illness.<\/p>\n
Pat is survived by Dave, her husband of 34 years; daughter Shaula (Douglas) Hutt of Jackson, MI; son David Patrick (Daniella) Coles of Waco, TX; grandchildren Kaetlynn, Logan, Liliana, and Ada Hutt; siblings Frank (Liz) Kilsdonk of Sun Prairie;\u00a0 Joann (Dom DeLeo) Kilsdonk of Wellesley, MA; Mary (Paul) Malischke of Madison; Judy (Mark) Stegman of Littleton, CO; Janet Kilsdonk of Madison; Sue (John) Danielson of Frisco, TX; Betty (Ted De Maria) Kilsdonk of Boulder, CO; Tom (Beverly) Kilsdonk of Sunnyvale, CA; and Barb (Nate) Thompson of DePere; as well as many nieces, nephews, and great nieces and nephews.\u00a0 She was preceded in death by her parents.<\/p>\n
Pat was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ and a long-time member of Pleasant Prairie Baptist Church, 12323 Greenbay Road, Pleasant Prairie, WI, where a celebration of her life will be observed on Saturday, March 24 at 3:00 p.m.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Patricia Ann (nee Kilsdonk) Coles went home to the place that Jesus prepared for her (John 14:2) on March 17, 2018, after a brave four-year battle with brain cancer. Born in Appleton, Wisconsin to Norbert Francis and Mary Frances (Vander Wielen) Kilsdonk on July 31,<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"service-location":[],"class_list":["post-13983","obituary","type-obituary","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/obituary\/13983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/obituary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/obituary"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"service-location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenoshafuneralhome.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/service-location?post=13983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}