From the moment we met, when I was 23 and she was 41, Pattie Ladd was an ally, a soulmate, a forever-friend. We read lesbian poetry out loud; we hiked amid waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge outside of Portland, Oregon. We deconstructed the state of the world and imagined what a better one could be. Pattie lived in more houses than anyone I knew as an adult: Clackamas to Portland to the Oregon coast to a casita in Ajijic, Mexico to Michigan and back to Portland. She became a graphic designer–an exceptional one–in her 50s and fell madly in love when she was 78. She met the world with courage, clarity, ferocity, a healthy dose of cynicism and an equal thirst for justice. She took her last breath on April 9, 2026.
–Anndee Hochman