Patrick L. Boyle

It was a Wonderful Life........Patrick (Pat) Boyle, son of Leo and Erma (Stockwell) Boyle, passed away peacefully at his Sun Prairie home on Friday December 29, 2017 at the age of 82 with his wife Muriel at his side. He lived a rich life as a self described ""Jack of all trades and master of none."" In truth, he was a master tinkerer with an innate ability to fix or build anything. He was everyone's ""go to"" guy when something didn't work.

Pat and older sisters, Verda and Velma, grew up working on the family farm in Rockbridge, Wisconsin near Richland Center surrounded with many of his aunts, uncles and cousins. Not only did he drive milk truck from a very early age, but he was also a lumberjack harvesting trees and driving logs to his father's sawmill. He attended Richland Center High school and played football for the Championship Richland Center Hornets. In addition to football, he was also on the track team, acted as class treasurer and was senior Homecoming King. He dated his high school sweet heart Mary Comar, who later became his wife for over 25 years.

After high school, Pat attended the University of Wisconsin Platteville, where he continued to play football while working summers at the family sawmill. He loves to tell stories of the ""shack"" he and a couple buddies lived in while going to school. He reports it was held together by nothing but habit. The walls were so ramshackle that there was little to no heat. Winter mornings they would find frost on their bedding. He graduated with a teaching degree specializing in industrial arts and became a teacher for the Slinger school district teaching math, industrial arts and acting as the assistant football coach. For extra cash, he drove school bus. In the summers, he picked up odd jobs such as operating the bumper cars at the Wisconsin State Fair.

After the birth of their daughter Lori in 1961, Pat and Mary designed and built a small A&W drive-in in the small town of Waterloo, Wisconsin. Originally designed to be a summer job, it turned into a career, with Pat proclaiming himself to be ""chief cook and bottle washer"". In 1965 they became parents a second time when son Lance was born. The tiny summer drive-in became so successful that Pat left teaching to expand the A&W from a basic drive in to a full restaurant with indoor seating - one of the fist indoor A&W's in the chain. For extra money, he sold Christmas trees from the carport in the winter. They also designed and built their first home in Waterloo. Pat was always close to his employees and his restaurants became true family businesses with Mary, Lori and Lance working together with him. He was especially proud to be a mentor and first employer for many of the local Waterloo High School kids. Little did he know when he hired Betty Johnson that her son Brian would eventually become his son in law when he married Pat's daughter Lori.

Years later, Pat sold the restaurant to find a more conventional career. He worked as a candy salesman for a restaurant supply company in Madison. Both Lori and Lance were thrilled to be the children of a candy salesman who was quite liberal about bringing home samples. Still interested in the restaurant business, the Pat and Mary bought property in Mesa, Arizona and moved west in hopes of opening a night club. Pat eventually invested in a restaurant chain called Sambo's and was transferred from Arizona to California, then Florida then Bartlesville Oklahoma and Corpus Christi, Texas where he ended up as a District Manager for the Sambo's chain. He loved living by the ocean, often taking his boat out on fishing trips with the family. In the early 80's, Sambo's went out of business and Pat's first marriage ended. He returned to Wisconsin to care for his mother in Waterloo. He worked at Sussex machine shop and Perry Printing. He even spent a time traveling the state as a contractor for grocery stores repairing and cleaning shopping carts, sometimes bringing Lance along for the ride.

He was lucky to find love a second time when he began seeing Muriel Knowles. They dated for almost a decade before beginning their 20 year marriage. More than ever, Pat truly enjoyed his later life. He was known to love the company of a good dog and an occasional cat. He enjoyed wearing a Santa Clause hat during the Christmas season. With his long white hair and beard, he was very often mistaken to be Santa himself! His favorite things were the 4 F's: Family, Food, Fishing and Football. Although usually in that order, Food sometimes took on first place..... especially at Thanksgiving. He was a big time ""foodie"", not the fine wine and quinoa type foodie, but rather the steak, potatoes, bacon, cheese and pie type. To Pat, there was nothing better than a good cookout with burgers and his well known potato salad which contained a little bit of everything he could throw in it. But his biggest food weakness was pie. He was often heard saying ""I like two kinds of pie: hot pie and cold pie......But free pie is my favorite.""

He traveled on many vacations including Canada and Mexico, where he took great enjoyment in the outdoors boating and fishing. Later in life, he preferred vacationing closer to home on camping trips with Muriel and his friends. After Pat and Muriel moved to Sun Prairie, he added gardening to his list of hobbies. He was very proud of their lovely home and would eagerly take any visitor on ""the Tour"" of his garden, pointing out every interesting plant and bragging about his abundant vegetables. During his later years, he became even closer to his Richland Center family and would snowbird the winters away in Tucson, Arizona with his sister, cousins, and nieces.

Pat lived a long, full, loving life and will be greatly missed by both family and friends. He was preceded in death by a sister, Velma, parents Leo and Erma (Stockwell) Boyle and niece Daneen Longhurst. Survivors include wife Muriel (Knowles) Boyle, sister Verda Longhurst, daughter Lori Johnson (Brian), son Lance, granddaughters Chelsea and Logan Boyle, niece Coleen Hanshaw (Robbie) and the Hewuse family of Richland Center.

Sadly, six days after Pat's death, on January 4th, his son Lance Boyle also passed away during a stem cell transplant at University Hospital.

A combined memorial ceremony for both Patrick and Lance Boyle will be held at Cress Funeral Home, 1310 Emerald Terrace, Sun Prairie, WI on Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 1:00 PM with Rev. Jenny Arneson presiding. A casual reception will follow until 4:00PM. Memorial donations may be made to any cancer charity in lieu of flowers.

Cress Funeral & Cremation Service
1310 Emerald Terrace
Sun Prairie, WI 53590
608-837-9054