Born in Missouri, F.E.W. Patten settled in Virginia City, Mont., as a merchant in 1863, served in the Montana territorial legislature, and until his death in 1898, sold real estate and insurance in Butte. F.E.W. Patten married Mary Amelia Armstrong and their son, George Y. Patten, was born at Virginia City in 1876. He attended public schools in Butte. After 1893, he worked as a court stenographer and studied law. In 1900, rather than going to law school, George took the bar exam and passed. He built up a private practice dealing primarily with corporate law, working closely with the law firm of Cotter and McHatton, and became widely recognized as an expert in mining, water rights, and public policy laws. In 1901, he married Eleanor Ferris and the couple had three children, Margaret (b. 1903), Mary (b. 1905), and Eleanor (b. 1913). George married his second wife, Sarah Frances Smith, in 1945. Frances was born in 1899 in Durham, Kan. She completed her B.A. in home economics at Kansas State University in 1922, and her M.A. in adult education at Columbia University in 1938. She worked for Kansas State College for the Extension Division from 1925 to 1927. She continued her Extension Service work in Flathead County, Mont., until 1929. Frances Patten taught for the Dept. of Home Economics at Montana State College between 1946 and 1964. She spent the last seven years of her teaching career doing extension work in the Middle East. George Y. Patten died in Bozeman in 1951 and Frances Patten died there in 1986.
From the description of Patten family papers, 1895-1986. (Montana State University Bozeman Library). WorldCat record id: 71054869
