Patty Kittridge, a lifelong educator from Yarmouth who passed away last year, will continue educating Maine youth through a new program at Merrill Memorial Library.
With the support of the Patty Kittridge Memorial Fund, the library is now offering two types of early learning kits for children ages 2 to 5. These are essentially backpacks filled with books on a specific theme, explained Peyton Price, children's services librarian at Merrill Memorial Library.
One kit is themed around emotions and feelings, and the other around numbers and numbers. The emotions and feelings kit includes the book “The Color Monster” by Ana Lenas, and the numbers and numbers kit includes the book “Ten Black Dots” by Donald Cruz. The kits are meant to encourage preschoolers to “learn alongside their parents and build skills they'll need in the future,” Price said.
Considering Patti Kittridge's life's work was helping young children learn and grow, there is perhaps no better way to honor her memory.
Mary Patricia Kittridge (known as “Patty” to those who knew her) was born in Philadelphia in 1948, moved to Yarmouth in 1979, and passed away in June 2023. She spent most of her childhood in Middlebury, Vermont, and then attended the University of Vermont, graduating with a degree in elementary education in 1970.
She met her future husband, Timothy James Kittridge III, in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, during the summer of 1969. That summer, Tim Kittridge was working as a lifeguard and helping out at a friend's ice cream shop two nights a week. One night, Patty and a friend came over, bought some ice cream, and continued strolling down the street.
“As they were walking back, I said, ‘Ladies, would you like a free ice cream cone?’” Tim Kittridge recalled. “And she took the free ice cream cone. I think anyone who can eat two ice cream cones in an hour is a good one.
“She was serious, but she was also very light-hearted. She had a great sense of humor,” he said of his first impression of her. She wanted to be a teacher, and began working as a first- and second-grade teacher in Colchester, Vermont. She later worked as a special education tutor in Colchester.
After their son, Andrew, was born in 1979, the couple moved to Yarmouth. She fell in love with it, but it wasn't easy at first. “Patty loved Vermont, she loved the mountains. In New England, you either grow up loving the mountains or you love the ocean. She grew up loving the mountains,” Kittredge explained.
To decide where to live in Maine, Patty visited elementary schools and met with principals, and Tim visited libraries. Kittridge, who describes himself as an “avid reader,” currently serves on the Merrill Memorial Library board of directors.
Patty then worked as a special education assistant at Morse Street School in Freeport and served as a reader for the Project Story Boost program in multilingual classrooms in several Portland schools. She ended her career as a lead kindergarten teacher for the Casco Bay branch of the YMCA of Southern Maine.
“She had a natural gift for working with children. She never judged them and accepted them for who they were,” Kittridge said in his wife's eulogy.
Anyone with a library card can borrow the kits.
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