Patricia Tueting, 83, Salt Lake City
Patricia Ann Peterson Tueting was born Jan. 26, 1941, in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, to Tom and Lucille Peterson. Pat, or Patty as she was known to family, passed away April 6, 2024, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Patty grew up in Blooming Prairie alongside her three siblings, Carol, Tom, and John; as well as an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. She graduated valedictorian from Blooming Prairie High School. At St. Olaf College, she earned her B.A. with a Major in Biology, Major in Psychology, and a Minor in Science Education. She also played flute in the St. Olaf band and orchestra, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Patty was beyond intelligent. After college, she attended Columbia University where she earned a Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology and a M.A. in Experimental Psychology. She went on to pursue a distinguished career in Neuroscience research as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute as well as a brief sojourn into the private sector as VP of R&D for MICRO. Her publishing credits range from Biological Psychiatry to Psychophysiology to Science. She also contributed research to, and authored numerous chapters in, a variety of academic books.
Pat met the love of her life, William (Bill) Tueting in 1968 when they were both students looking to share cab fare from the New York airport to Columbia. They lived in New York for many years and Washington, D.C. for a few before moving to Winnetka, Ill., to raise their two children, Jonathan,51, and Sarah, 48, in whom they instilled a pursuit of excellence. Jonathan is shoulder, elbow, hand and micro surgeon at Castle Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Aurora, Ill. Sarah is a two-time Olympic medalist, executive/life coach living Park City, Utah.
Patty loved her family deeply. Her birthday presents to siblings, nieces, nephews and other extended family was legendary. She overdid Christmas, every year, staying late into the night wrapping beautiful packages, each with a ribbon or a bow and beautiful card to match the thoughtful contents to send to family. She also cooked exquisitely feasts for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. The full Cratchit dinner was an experience served on special dinnerware and polished silver.
She also loved warm sand under feet and a good margarita. She loved dancing, though consistently said her husband had no rhythm. She loved gardening and cooking. She loved to laugh at slapstick humor, sometimes crying at the silliness on the screen. She loved warm cinnamon rolls and classical music and getting dressed up for a night out. She loved going out to dinner and for a slow jog/walk in the mornings to “clear the cobwebs.” That was after she was delivered fresh squeezed orange juice, a latte, and the papers in bed by her husband.
She loved memories of her childhood, going out to her grandparents, canning fruits and vegetables, going for long drives chasing midwestern thunderstorms, Christmas Eves in Blooming Prairie, and time at the lake. She loved living in New York, buying warm nuts while waiting in cold winter lines for cheap movies. She loved the ‘country house’, her month-long honeymoon in Europe taken years after they got married. She loved their trip to Israel, a good bargain and Ferragamo shoes (better if on sale). She had style, classic and elegant.
She was a woman who broke the mold, earning a Ph.D., an early working mom, devoted wife, fiercely protective (almost scarily so) of those she loved. Patty was quiet, but fierce. She defined the leading edge of modern working women, pursuing a career while raising kids when nobody else was doing that, when maternity leave didn’t exist, when to be a working woman was to be a man and a woman, and to buck the system supported by women who gossiped about working women and their latch key kids and self-proclaiming as strong women. Pat simply lived it.
Patty loved tulips and bluebells and paperwhite and amaryllis’. She loved Nancy’s lefse. She loved talking to her family on the weekends. She and Bill loved to discuss politics, go to museums, and the symphony. She loved almonds and peanut butter. She did not like throwing things away, everything could be used again, everything could have a purpose. She loved to balance a check book. She read Uncle Remus to her children in perfect accent. Sometimes she drove with two feet. She loved to clip coupons and recipes, mixing them in with old family recipes written on notecards in relatives handwriting. She liked baths, not showers. She loved Bill, deeply. And the two talked constantly. They loved to go to symphony and the New York City Ballet. She had a ready laugh, a giggle almost, and little things made her happy, like flowers from the farmers market, picking strawberries, time with family. Patty
loved spring the most, with the longer days and the blooming flowers, a physical manifestation of hope and optimism.
Pat was preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Bill; her mother and father, Lucille and Thomas Peterson; her grandparents, Mabel and Edward Basness and Carl and Mae Peterson.
She is survived by her son, Jonathan Tueting (Sarah) and his three children, Katelyn, Sam, and Megan; her daughter Sarah Tueting and her kids, Kalvin and Grace; her sister Carol Bacon (Phil), brothers Tom Peterson (Nancy), and John Peterson; her aunt Janice Strohschein, many cousins, nieces and nephews, and her guardian angle, Kitty Poo.