_JPG.jpg)
BLOG
Blog & Events
Volunteer Spotlight
.jpg)
Patrick Francis Hussey is a fifth-generation Washingtonian, born in Anacortes in 1950 at the then small public hospital. At that time, his father was a young Navy pilot with a PB-Y squadron stationed at NAS Whidbey and his mother was a public health nurse (UW School of Nursing 1948). Patrick and his mother lived with her parents while his father was deployed; this was on beautiful property off Scenic Heights Drive in Oak Harbor; the house is still there today, although now surrounded by many houses.
Patrick is one of the third-great grandsons of Michael Troutman Simmons and his wife, Elizabeth Kindred Simmons. In 1846, they led with others a wagon train over the Oregon Trail and ultimately established the first white pioneer settlement community (now known as Tumwater) north of the Columbia River before Washington became a State. One of their sons (who Elizabeth Kindred was pregnant with for the 7 months journey) was the first white child born to pioneer settlement north of the Columbia. In recognition of this, his name was Christopher Columbus Simmons.
Patrick’s family lived in Oak Harbor until 1958 and then he grew up near US Naval Bases in Southern California. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1972. After working in a salmon cannery in Togiak, Alaska for two seasons, he attended the University of Washington School of Law, and graduated in 1976. After a 39 year law career, he retired in 2017. Patrick, his wife Patty and two young daughters (6th generation Washingtonians) moved to Whidbey from Yakima in 1998. His two daughters, and now two twin granddaughters, live in the Bay Area, California.
Following his maternal grandmother’s passion for family history and genealogy (before the internet and email), Patrick is a student of Washington and Whidbey Island history (Michael T. Simmons and Isaac Ebey knew each other well). He is an interpretive docent at the Admiralty Head Lighthouse, the Jacob & Sarah Ebey House, and now at the Island County Historical Society. In 2019, Patrick established his dual Irish citizenship based on his paternal grandparents Irish ancestry.