For 50 years, Patricia “Pat” Cleary was the familiar and welcoming face of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart to generations of students, faculty, staff, alumnae and campus visitors alike. The longtime receptionist from 1969 to 2019 of the all-girls Catholic school in Bethesda, Maryland died on Aug. 16 at the age of 96.
“Our hearts unite as we pray for Mrs. Cleary and for her family,” said Catherine Ronan Karrels, head of Stone Ridge. “Pat was the heart and soul of the community, greeting five decades of Stone Ridge students and community members and making everyone feel that they had arrived at their home away from home.”
More than a year ago, Stone Ridge announced that the front desk at the Mater Center, its new student life building in the heart of campus, would be named the Patricia Cleary Reception Desk in her honor. “She will be forever remembered at Stone Ridge,” Karrels said.
Born Aug. 30, 1924, Cleary was one of eight children and was raised in New York City. She attended St. Mary’s School, Cathedral High School for Girls and Packard Business College. She married her husband, Timothy F. Cleary in 1947 and they became the parents of six children. A lifelong Catholic, Cleary’s faith was foundational and central to her life. She was a parishioner of St. Jane de Chantal Parish in Bethesda.
Soon after her husband’s legal career brought the Cleary family to Bethesda in the late 1960s, she started working at Stone Ridge when her daughters began attending school there. Cleary was described as the “face and voice” of Stone Ridge to all who walked through the front door. “Every person felt welcomed and special because of her warm hospitality,” according to a loving tribute on the school’s website in honor of Cleary’s retirement two years ago.
Sister Anne Dyer, a religious of the Society of the Sacred Heart and the former head of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart from 1984 to 2006, said, “Pat has gone to God. May she rest in peace. Now she and Tim are singing with the angels together.”
From Cleary’s “command center” at the reception desk in Hamilton House, she greeted visitors, directed daily foot traffic and kept the phones in order. In a letter to the Stone Ridge community announcing Cleary’s passing, Karrels said the former receptionist was the “connection of our building to the community” for five decades and will forever be remembered as a “most treasured figure in our lives.” Three of Cleary’s daughters and two granddaughters are alumnae of the school.
In a 1989 interview with a school publication, Cleary said, “Life can become a circus at the front desk when dealing with emergency calls for teachers, taking absentees and sorting the mail in between the constant ringing of eight lines into the switchboard.” Through it all she remained calm and cordial while keeping messages organized and delivered promptly, with a sunny disposition and advice to, “Keep smiling always and never let it get you down.”
At her final faculty meeting prior to her June 2019 retirement, Cleary began to read a favorite poem of hers that reflected her love for Stone Ridge and the students. She was only able to make it through the first few lines of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 before becoming too emotional to finish. “How do I love thee, let me count the ways...This is how I feel about the girls. They are the love of my life.”
Cleary is survived by her six children, Timothy, Maureen, Therese, Richard, Gail, and Eileen; 14 grandchildren; eight great-granchildren; and a brother and a sister.
A private Mass of Christian Burial will take place and a public “Celebration of Life” will be held in the spring of 2022. Her final resting place will be in Arlington National Cemetery.
