Patricia Ann (Swaney) Ketels passed away at home on January 2, 2025, she was 95. She was born September 26, 1929, in Sand Springs, Oklahoma to Paul Edward Swaney and Thelma Hartman. She was one of four children. Pat grew up and lived most of her young life in Sand Springs with a short move to Minneapolis with her family, eventually moving back to Oklahoma where she graduated from Sand Springs High School and immediately went to work as the high school Principal’s secretary. After several years, in her mid-twenties, she moved to Port Hueneme, California to live with her brother and his wife as it was time to spread her wings and move to a larger city. She found employment as the secretary to the Commanding Officer at the Port Hueneme military base. It was here that she met Hark and after a brief 3 month courtship, they were married at the base chapel on May 20, 1956.
Pat and Hark moved several times as the Navy required of them, to Hawaii, South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi and eventually back to settle in Camarillo, California. They had four children, Sandra, Linda, Chris and Susan. Once her children were mostly raised, she worked as a bookkeeper for a small company in Camarillo. In June of 1979 she and her sweetheart were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. After retirement they served a family history mission in Salt Lake City, Utah, and there discovered her love of genealogy and learning about her own family history.
Pat loved to read, work jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, work on family history, sew, knit and eat chocolate. She was an amazing wife, mother and grandmother. She was loving, kind, tender and had a strong testimony of her Savior, Jesus Christ. She will be missed by so many.
Preceding her in death were her husband, Hark; her parents, Paul and Thelma Swaney; her 3 brothers, Paul Jr, Harold and Robert Swaney, and her son-in-law Richard Travis Beifuss. She is survived by her 4 children: Sandra Ketels, Linda and husband Frank Ah Sue, Chris and wife Lori Ketels, Susan Beifuss; 19 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren with 2 more on the way later in 2025.
There will be a graveside service at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park, 2052 Howard Road, Camarillo, CA on January 13, 2025, at 1:00pm.
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