SALLIE PATE
1948-2020
On 28 December, 2020, in Nassau Bay, Texas, the life of the most wonderful, caring, funny, intelligent, creative and beautiful person ever to walk the earth came to an end after 72 years of improving the world. If you had the privilege of knowing Sallie Ann Biggs Pate, your world was enhanced and it may never recover from her loss.
She was born Sallie Ann Biggs on 24May, 1948, to Robert Henry Biggs and Joleen Ruth Hunter Biggs in Enid, Oklahoma. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Phillips University and a Masters of Fine Arts from Texas Christian University.
After college she worked as an actress at Casa Mañana Playhouse in Ft Worth, Texas. A year later, she moved to Vermillion, South Dakota, where she taught acting, creative dramatics, children’s theatre, and costume design and construction at the University of South Dakota. She also directed numerous productions along with designing and building costumes. In 1979, Sallie moved to the University of Houston Clear Lake City where she continued to teach, direct and costume. When she retired, she took up designing and constructing quilts, starting her own company, Sallie Pate Designs. She was very much in demand as a teacher of quilting and other fabric arts. When quilting became too easy, she switched to embroidery, earning a Master Craftsman award, as well as continuing to utilize her formidable skills as a teacher and designer.
In 1972, she gave Jeff Pate the honor of becoming her husband. They lived happily ever after for 48 years.
In 2019, she broke all the rules and survived pancreatic cancer,. Ultimately though, her amazing spirit could not overcome her deteriorating body.
Sallie Pate is preceded in death by her father and mother, Robert and Joleen Biggs, and her brother, Steven Biggs. She is survived by her grieving husband, Jeff Pate, her sister Judy Vonada of Reno, Nevada, as well as niece Trisha Conner Shaffer and nephews Jason Biggs and Michael Biggs of Alabama.
Sallie’s wish was to be cremated. There will be no service. A celebration of her life will be arranged and announced when it is once again safe for us all to travel and gather. Please, if you knew her and loved her, do something nice for someone. As she did every day of her extraordinary life.