Patricia "Pat" Furze, 98, Lead, passed away on Sunday, November 16, 2014, at Sturgis Regional Senior Care.

Visitation will be held at Kinkade Funeral Chapel on Wednesday, November 19, 2014, from noon to 3:00 p.m. A Christian Wake Service will be held at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 19, 2014, at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lead. Mass of Christian burial will be held at 10:00 a.m. Thursday, November 20, 2014, at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lead with Father Peter Kovarik and Father Timothy Castor officiating. Burial will be at Holy Cross Cemetery near Lead.

Pat was born in Lead on March 4, 1916, to Herman and Marguerite (Connell) Stromer. She attended grade school at the South Lead School, Mt. Carmel Academy in Sausalito, CA, and St. Patrick's Grade School in Lead, where she graduated from eighth grade. She studied for her first three years of high school at St. Brigid's High School in San Francisco, CA, and then returned to Lead High School for her senior year, graduating with the class of 1933. After graduation, she took classes in typing, shorthand, and accounting at Lead High School.

She met Wallace "Wally" Furze at the beginning of her senior year in the fall of 1932, and they were a couple for the next 76 years. They were married at St. Patrick's Church in Lead on June 6, 1940.

When Wally was drafted into the Army Air Force in World War II, Pat took over his job as the corporation accountant for Black Hills Amusement Company in Lead, which operated nine movie theaters in the Black Hills area. Wally eventually was assigned to a military post in Santa Monica, CA, so Pat joined him there and obtained a civil service job as a secretary to Major R. Kirk Underhill in both business and military correspondence as well as an accountant for the Army Air Force Western Technical Training Command headquarters.

After the war, Pat and Wally returned to Lead, and their son, Barry was born in 1946. Although Pat did not work outside the home after that, she was an active member of St. Patrick's Church and the Lead Country Club, and she supported Wally in his many professional and community activities.

She is survived by her son, Dr. Barry Furze of Sturgis, and numerous cousins.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Wally in 2008, her parents, and maternal grandparents, all of Lead; her paternal grandparents of Nebraska; and by all her aunts and uncles.

A memorial has been established to St. Patrick's Church in Lead.

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