You should have seen the bookshelves at Patricia McKenna’s Altadena home.
It was an astounding personal library, her friend recalled: a collection of books on art, fashion, history and design that bowed even on the most sturdy shelves.
When a friend became interested in Scythian culture, McKenna not a book but an entire section of an ancient Central Asian design, near Bactrian art and 12 academic works on Thracian art, outfits and culture. It has been handed over.
She got the books and handed them over, then bought more books to fill the space. The shelves slack, her husband banged more reinforcements and from there the cycle continued.
“That’s how she runs it. Kat Winesberg, McKenna’s longtime friend and beneficiary of the Scythian bequest, said:
Her voice became quiet. “The library is now in ashes,” she said.
On Monday, county medical inspectors confirmed that McKenna, a longtime Altadena resident, died at a home on Panahou Street during the Eton fire, which consumed more than 9,400 structures over an area of nearly 22 square miles. . She was 77 years old. McKenna is one of 17 known to have died in the Eton fire, all of which are west of Lake Avenue.
The news was a blow to the community that reminded McKenna with her creative best. A former student and faculty member at Los Angeles City College, she worked in the theatre department for many years.
“The world and our camp have lost an epic woman at Etonfire,” said group member Robert Setter. “She was a classy woman [with] He was a terrible, dry wit and an avid observer. ”
McKenna grew up in Whittier with her older brother and two sisters, Winesburg said.
She was interested in historic outfits early on. This is the passion she uses in her personal and professional life.
As an introduction to the LACC costume shop, McKenna has gathered technically perfect and historically accurate costumes, from Neil Simon’s “The Lost Yonkers” to the mid-century French drama “Cher Antoine.”
She helped create a wedding dress, a historically faithful reenactment of Elizabethan outfits.
McKenna drew from her encyclopedia of fashion knowledge from the medieval era, Jenny said, who asked her friend, to withhold her last name due to privacy concerns.
“If someone had to know anything about the outfit, Pat was something they could go to,” she said. “She had a generous nature and generous spirit like someone I had never known before.”
Around 1985, McKenna married Tom Welbaum. Few friends can remember the exact nature of Wellbaum’s work decades later. -But everything vividly remembers his pure sense of humor and dedication to McKenna.
She moved with him to Kit’s house in 1923, Sears, Lowbuck, Company Panahou Street.
For nearly 20 years, the couple traveled, went to Renaissance fairs and historic festivals, and hosted friends and family, even after a workplace accident caused Wellbaum to be disabled.
McKenna stood 6 feet tall and proudly, but when she was irritated, she could be fragmented and unhappy, a friend said. However, she was consistently generous – giving almost new clothes and jewellery to a friend she thought was suitable for them. Maintain a small cash fund just for veterinary bills for your loved one’s sick pet.
In the early 2000s, Welbaum was hit by a car across the road of a mobility scooter. He died soon afterwards. By the calculations of her friend, McKenna went with him.
Her health began to decline. She went out much more frequently than before.
A few years after Wellbaum’s death, a heart attack sent her to the hospital. She left with a diagnosis of defibrillators and a wounded cardiac syndrome, a colloquial term for rapid weakening of the myocardium.
“But we might have told him that,” Jenny said of the doctor. “When Tom passed away…it took her heart.”
A series of waterfalls left McKenna and were injured, making it difficult to avoid. When Winesburg visited in July, McKenna was beginning to talk about cleaning her location and the possibility of eventually moving to aid living facilities.
Given the fact that the two women have health issues, they almost certainly cried to see each other.
Winesburg said a friend spoke to McKenna on the evening of January 7th, about an hour after the Eton fire began. McKenna said she would pack her go bags and sit tight until she was ordered to evacuate.
It never did. Her home was located in the area west of Lake Avenue, where she was not evacuated until early January 8th.
For several days, my friends were called emergency shelters, hospitals and the Red Cross and were looking for her. A week later, the family learns that a human body has been found where her home once stood.
It took me nearly a month to make sure the forensic test was McKenna’s.
Her loved ones want her to sleep all of it, Winesburg said. They found some peace, knowing that McKenna doesn’t need to see her beloved house in the ashes.
“She wasn’t happy at all and would have been uninterested in rebuilding the house she loved,” Winesburg said. “The house she lived with Tom is gone.”
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