Patricia Ennis Burns

Patricia Ennis Burns

Pat was born on July 13, 1940, in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Lawrence Ennis and Anna (Stremich) Ennis and the youngest of three children.  She graduated from Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead, California.  Following her first marriage, she worked as an administrator in a medical clinic.  They lived in various places in Southern California, then moved to Coos Bay, Oregon, and later to Salem, Oregon, where Pat worked for the government of the state of Oregon. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Western Oregon State College, now Western Oregon University.  

Following her divorce, she accepted a position with the state of Utah in Salt Lake City.  While working there, she earned her Master of Business Administration degree from Westminster University, all the while working full time and raising three sons from her first marriage.  In 1996, she accepted a position with the federal Social Security Administration in Denver, and in 2003 she was promoted to Social Security’s national headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

She met her second husband, Doug, as participants in a tour of Japan arranged through mutual friends. They met at Tokyo airport, became friends, and pursued their relationship after their return to the US, while she was living in Baltimore and he was living in Pittsburgh. They married in November 2010. Pat retired from Social Security, and they moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.  In 2016, they moved to Denver to be closer to family.

Pat and Doug loved to travel and profited from their retirement to visit numerous foreign destinations.  In 2014, in the course of a Christian mission trip to Uganda, they were instrumental in the establishment of a home for teenage pregnant girls who had been rejected by their parents. Pat also enjoyed opera, symphony concerts, and US Major League soccer matches.  Her principal avocation was reading.  She was an active member of Brighton Methodist Church.

In addition to her husband, Pat is survived by her three sons, Richard, of Kona, Hawaii; Robert, of Graham, Washington; and Ronald, of Torrington, Wyoming; and four grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the international health care organization Partners in Health, at https://www.pih.org.

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