Patricia M. McColgan, a retired public school educator who embraced her Irish heritage and sprawling family, died of pneumonia May 7 at Compass, a hospice in Centreville. The Chester resident was 92.
“She was just a terrific woman and the word I’d use to describe her was worldly. She had a big, big personality,” said a nephew, Gerry J. Jackson, former Baltimore Sun sports editor.
“She was caring, loving and wherever she went, she brought joy. She was effervescent and just phenomenal.” Patricia Mary Jackson, daughter of James Jackson, a prizefighter and boxing coach at Princeton University, and Mary Hutton Jackson, a Princeton University secretary, was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey.
After graduating from Princeton High School, she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1956 in early childhood education from what is now Towson University. While at Towson, she met and fell in love with a fellow student, John A. McColgan, and married in 1956.
A Westinghouse Electric Corp. international marketing executive, Mr. McColgan’s work took the couple to Ireland, Micronesia and Iran.
They later settled in Catonsville, Marriottsville and Columbia, where they raised their three children. Mrs. McColgan taught at Halethorpe Elementary School from 1957 to 1958, and later was on the faculty of several Howard County public schools, including Talbott Springs Elementary School, where she taught for a decade until retiring in 1979.
“She could absolutely handle a class of boisterous.