Patsy Ann Conway

Patsy Ann Conway

3/31/2023

Patsy Ann Conway, 91, died peacefully Friday, March 31, 2023, at Halifax Hospice Care in Orange City. Her beloved son Chip Conway and granddaughter Hannah Conway were by her side.

Ann and her husband, Louis Conway Sr., were longtime Ormond Beach, Florida residents, where Lou practiced law and they raised Chip, cheering him on in many sports at Seabreeze High School. After Lou’s passing, Ann spent nine happy years as a resident at John Knox Village with new and dear friends. She lived an independent and active life in her lovely home until a few days before her death, enjoying the daily parade of wildlife from her windows. The spring arrival of baby sandhill cranes was her special favorite. Ann’s life was enriched by her love of animals and her many treasured dog companions. She was a talented and avid photographer who filled her years with travels that connected her to the wonders of the natural world which she captured on film: she swam with dolphins in the Keys, traversed Canadian tundra by foot and buggy in search of harp seal pups and polar bears, awed at pronghorn antelope in the grassy valleys of Wyoming, and braved the icy Hudson Bay in a small zodiac boat surrounded by migrating beluga whales. Ann and Lou were devoted Florida Gators, and she attended the UF ladies football clinics well into her 80s. She loved visiting Chip’s family in the Virginia Blue Ridge, where he has a successful home design and construction business, and she looked forward to celebrating Hannah’s completion of her PhD from Harvard later this year before starting as a professor at Duke in the fall.

Ann was born on July 14, 1931, in Muskogee, OK to Lloyd and Patsy Dever and spent her formative years in her favorite hometown of Memphis, TN. Ann was a proud American and Veteran, and her greatest passion in life was flying. After graduating from Sacred Heart High School in 1949 in Memphis, she enlisted in the US Air Force and was honorably discharged in 1953. She went on in her civilian life to earn her private pilot license. She was an active member of many aviation and patriotic organizations: The Daughters of the American Revolution; the Commemorative Air Force helping restore WWII Warbirds; over 50 years with the International Organization of Women Pilots, aka the “99s,”; and with the Deland Chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association. Through her maternal family Ann was an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and was a dedicated supporter of Native artists, museums, and organizations.

Ann is survived by her son Chip (Louis Conway, Jr.) and his wife Kathy of Roanoke, VA, her granddaughter Hannah Conway of Memphis, the family of her late brother Bill Dever, and friends across the country. In accordance with her wishes Ann was cremated, and her family will spread her ashes from an airplane in the Grand Tetons, a landscape close to her heart. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital (st.jude.org) or Tunnels to Towers Foundation (t2t.org).

Ann’s family is honored to welcome friends to gather in celebration of her life on Wednesday, April 12th between 2 and 4pm in the Azalea Room of the Victoria Hills Golf Club, 300 Spalding Way, DeLand, FL.