“With her, her satisfaction was just it was done,” he said, recalling her telling him: “As long as it’s being done, God gets the glory for it.”
David Daniels, a professor of the history of Christianity at McCormick Theological Seminary and a bishop of the denomination, said Patterson determined to focus on people, including scholars, outside COGIC to expand knowledge about the denomination of which she was a lifelong member.
“She wanted to be able to do her work outside of the denomination, because she wanted to be able to reach people who don’t necessarily belong to the Church of God in Christ,” he said. “And she saw it as a badge of honor.”
Patterson organized bus tours of sites related to COGIC and other Pentecostal faiths, including one when the Society for Pentecostal Studies met in Memphis in 2011.
Beyond her work on the church’s heritage, Patterson also was a supporter and encourager of pastors and women in the church.
“She helped so many women in that church to get involved in businesses, and how to do ledgers, how to help them network, to get jobs,” said Sherry Sherrod DuPree, a Florida historian and former president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. “Women would talk to her to find out ways to help themselves to do better in the community.”
This article originally appeared here.
