Gerard Patton (1/17/1933- 8/29/2022) was the youngest of five sons of John Patton and Mae (McCormack) Patton. After high school and service in the United States Coast Guard, he married his childhood sweetheart, Barbara “Diane” Doebler, on January 3, 1953. Jerry earned an engineering degree from UConn, and moved to Milford in 1959 where he resided the rest of his life. In 1965 he joined Russ Clarke Real Estate. He took over the agency upon Mr. Clarke’s retirement in 1970, renaming it Clarke & Patton Realtors.
Clarke was a descendant of early Milford setters and familiar with local history which inspired Patton. He was a respected businessman expanding into travel and other services. He and Diane traveled much of the world together.
As a valued member of Milford Rotary since June 1992, he got the support of the club to initiate the Milford Memories Project. Jerry helped compile almost 50 video interviews of senior citizens recounting their memories of Milford history. Videos are available at the Milford Public Library.
In 2008 he founded and served as long- time chairman of the Milford Hall of Fame. This involved rounding up five living mayors to anchor a group of local historians and residents, a task akin to herding cats and a test of anyone’s organizational skills. They documented the contributions to Milford by notable and significant people and entities from our history with illustrated plaques in the Parsons Government Complex.
Inspired by one of his favorite films, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” he entered politics and served five terms representing Milford in the Connecticut General Assembly. He was instrumental in passing a bill mandating life-saving sprinklers in high rise buildings, hotels and motels, convalescent homes and senior housing projects. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988 as a Republican. The candidate met Ronald Reagan and visited George H.W. Bush with Diane in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Patton worked with Milford’s Stephen Stowe Society to develop the city’s first homeless shelter. This was an effort inspired by his mother who took into her Depression-era home people who had nowhere else to go. Often Patton woke up to find strangers sleeping on couches and floors.
Patton was fascinated by the fact that when the rest of the nation was mostly wilderness, Milford was already a thriving village having been founded in 1639. His legacy of the Milford Memories Project with videos containing oral history and the Milford Hall of Fame in the Parsons Complex, lived on. The corridor is lined with plaques with the faces of each honoree. All of the faces on the plaques have been drawn by long time MHOF committee member Dorothy Kozlowski, widow of Mayor Ed Kozlowski (MHOF 2022).
Patton was an active parishioner and volunteer for decades at St. Mary Church and is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery on Buckingham Avenue.
He was survived by his wife of almost 70 years, daughters Cynthia Vere, Cheryl Patton and Susan Fox and sons Kevin Patton and Kerry Patton, nine grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren.
