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Pat Shultz and Lenore Ross enjoyed a 43-year romance. |
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Pat Shultz dies at 78
Local benefactor and real estate pioneer
PROVINCETOWN — Patricia (Ratcliff) Shultz, 78, a major presence in the Outer Cape real estate industry and a quiet benefactor to local arts and health organizations, died on Sunday, Aug. 10, at Cape Cod Hospital following a lengthy illness.
She was a woman who always made a difference without ever needing to call attention to herself or her own actions. Not that she was shy. If Pat had something to say, she said it, though never with unkindness.
Most will remember her long years at the helm of Pat Shultz Real Estate, but that’s not where she started out. Pat was born Dec. 10, 1929, in a small West Virginia town, the daughter of Erma and William Ratcliff. When she got to Provincetown in the mid-1950s it wasn’t as a real estate big wig. She was a summer cook at Howard Johnson’s (now Michael Shay’s). During the winter she worked at the Cape End Manor. Meanwhile, Lenore Ross, the woman who was to become her partner of over 40 years, was just getting to town too. Lenore opened a Chinese restaurant, but switched over to more American cuisine with the Plain & Fancy. Pat was hired as a cook there in the mid-’60s.
“She came to cook and two days later we fell in love,” Lenore says, sitting in the house they built in the far West End of town.
Pat and Lenore kept the restaurant until 1975 when they felt a change in the wind. Pat said real estate was the way they should go. Over the years they bought and sold numerous properties, personally rehabbing many of them. Pat became the go-to person for her year-round rentals or to find a way to buy that first house.
“She sold me and everybody I know our homes,” Joy McNulty, longtime friend, says. “No one could live or work anywhere without Pat in those days. She was very wise and very patient with people who wanted to buy. If it was your dream, she found a way to make it happen.”
In fact, it was Pat who steered McNulty to the Lobster Pot. She was thinking of a different location but Pat dragged her down the street and said, “That’s your new restaurant.”
She became deeply interested in town government and for many years would never miss a Town Meeting.
“She sat at the end of the row, by the microphone,” McNulty says.
And she was always ready with questions about expenditures and had insightful questions about what the consequences would be for decisions made with too little consideration.
She cared about the town, but even more about the people in it. When AIDS began she helped the fledgling Provincetown AIDS Support Group find a building from which to work. She donated a Ford station wagon so clients could be ferried to Boston for treatment. And when Outer Cape Health Services started up, she was there, helping raise money and leaning on people she knew to dig a little deeper.
Through Lenore she became very involved with the arts, especially the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Lenore’s brother, Alvin Ross, a well-known painter, had once been president of PAAM and some of his works were in the collection. The building was in bad shape, and Pat became one of the movers and shakers in getting the new facility built.
She was on the committee that hired PAAM’s executive director, Chris McCarthy, who remembers being interviewed by the committee and Pat asking, “If you get the job, how will you find a place to live?” McCarthy responded, “You’re a real estate broker, you’ll find me something,” and the two hit it off.
McCarthy says much of the credit for the new museum goes to Pat.
“She brought people on board that she knew would pony up,” she says. “She commanded attention and when she spoke, people listened. I could always call her and she never failed me. She had such great understanding and was a huge influence. I could not have done it without her.”
Part of what Pat wanted was a safe home for the Alvin Ross collection, and both Lenore and PAAM got that. PAAM has dedicated a wing to Alvin Ross and now uses that new climate-controlled storage area to get canvases on loan from museums around the world.
In their four decades-plus together, Pat and Lenore had a busy, happy life. “Pat liked movies, she liked to go to plays, to dinner, out to openings,” Lenore says. “Whatever was happening in town, she wanted to be part of it.”
She loved to read, especially American history, and enjoyed travel. They took many trips, including visits to England, France, Italy, Bali, Australia and China.
Until illness kept her out of the garden, Pat could frequently be found in her flowers and vegetables. She loved birds, spending quiet moments with Lenore and then seeing the larger world. “She just wanted to be part of the whole world,” Lenore says.
In their domestic world what was important was taking care of each other, working toward the same goals, not pulling apart, Lenore says when asked about the secret of their long relationship.
“We did projects together, had a lot of fun and no secrets,” she says. “Besides loving someone you have to respect them, and we did.”
After 42 years together, they got married on June 16, 2007. McNulty says Pat called her and said, you will never believe it, Lenore asked me to marry her. Even though she didn’t think it necessary, it was what Lenore wanted and that was reason enough.
Did they have a honeymoon?
“All 42 years were a great big honeymoon,” Lenore says, eyes filling. “It was a 42-year romance.”
In addition to her wife, Lenore, Pat is survived by her sister, Jacqueline Morris of Cleveland, Ohio, and several nieces and nephews. She had several other siblings who predeceased her.
Visiting hours were scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, at Gately-McHoul Funeral Home, 94 Harry Kemp Way in Provincetown. A graveside service will take place at 11 a.m. Thursday in Provincetown Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to Lower Cape Ambulance Service Association, P.O. Box 1721, Provincetown, MA 02657 or the Provincetown Art Association & Museum, 460 Commercial St., Provincetown, MA 02657.
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A home of their own
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Aug 14th, 2008