Shicks, Patricia "Pat" (Mrs. Vel) 1938-2023

SHICKS, VANGILDER

Posted By: Marjorie Brunsting-Volunteer (email)
Date: 3/29/2023 at 13:19:40

Patricia “Pat” L. Shicks, 84, of Sioux Center, Iowa died, Saturday, March 25, 2023, at Crown Point Care Center in Sioux Center.

Visitation is Saturday, April 1 from 12:30 to 1:30 PM, with the family present at Christ Community Evangelical Free Church in Sioux Center.

The funeral service is at 1:30 PM Saturday, April 1, also at Christ Community Church with Reverends Mark Johnson, Carlos Perez, and Randy Widbin. Interment will follow the service in Memory Gardens Cemetery in Sioux Center.

Due to a family member with a medical condition, please refrain from wearing fragrances and perfumes on April 1. Thank you.

If you wish to donate a monetary gift, here are a few of Pat’s most treasured organizations.

The Hispanic ministry of Christ Community Church, 945 7th Ave SE, Sioux Center, IA 51250
Hidden Acres Christian Center, 3837 Union Ave Dayton, IA 50530
Zola Levitt Ministries, PO Box 12268 Dallas, TX 75225-0268
Heroes to Heroes, PO Box 741577 Boynton Beach, FL 33474-1577

Due to a family member with a medical condition, please refrain from wearing fragrances and perfumes on April 1. Thank you.

Beloved and Godly mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Patricia “Pat” Luise Shicks, 84, left behind her earthly tent and took residence in heaven with Jesus on Saturday, March 25, 2023. After a few weeks of compounded health struggles, she passed away at Crown Pointe Care Center in Sioux Center. Her bright smile, generous heart, sunny disposition, engaging ways, and gospel-first radiance will be tremendously missed by all who knew and loved her. Pat was a bright light!

Pat was born on November 9, 1938, in Moline, IL. In 1955, as a senior in high school, at the invitation of her friend Jeannine, Pat attended a gospel meeting and gave her heart to Christ! Her life changed beautifully and radically from that day. Pat attended Trinity College in Deerfield, IL. In 1959, she married Vel Shicks and within a few years, they were blessed with two children: Ruth Ellen and Bryan Ellis. They made their home in Dundee, IL, and later in Des Moines, IA.

Our lipstick-wearing-mom enjoyed playing in the leaves with neighborhood kids, building snowmen with college students, swimming, making “Speech Fudge” for the High School Speech Team, traveling, sending cards, welcoming missionaries for a meal, hosting “evangelistic ironing parties” in the ‘60s, pulling pranks, speaking at conferences, playing with her grands and greats, writing poems, studying the Bible, teaching junior high girls Sunday School and “acting” as the Apostle Paul, praying earnestly for Bryan while he was overseas with the Army, singing with dad, spoiling her dogs, eating ice cream, forcing young Bryan and Ruth to take horse-sized vitamins, believing she was just a little bit Jewish, and looking for ways to connect and have conversations about her life in Christ.

Over many decades, Pat and Vel were involved, full and part-time, in various Christian ministries: discipling new believers from Billy Graham Crusades, Christian youth camping, young adult outreach, writing curriculum, and leading substance abuse support groups. Pat attended Explo ‘72 in Dallas, TX at the start of the ‘70s Jesus Movement. Pat and Vel were the founders of Hidden Acres Christian Center in Dayton, IA. Praise God!

Pat and Vel semi-retired to Sioux Center in 1993. Pat loved and was an active member at Christ Community Church serving as a teacher, mentor, and greeter extraordinaire. If she did not invite you to a Bible study, you never met her or the house was on fire.

Throughout their lives, Bryan and Ruth never doubted their mother’s love and found it easy to share her with so many. She became “Mama Pat,” soul sister, and “Grandma Pat” to hundreds, literally hundreds.

She is survived by her handsome and protective older brother, Earle “Doc” (Annie) Van Gilder of Mesa, AZ; and by her children Ruth (Shicks) and Dale Landegent of Sioux Center and Bryan and Barbara Shicks of Aurora, MN. Pat is also survived by 6 grandchildren: Titus (Magdalene) Landegent of Sioux Center; Bethany (Carson) Norine of Blair, NE; John-Bryan (Emily) Shicks of Wahiawa, HI; Bryanna (Johnathon) Pallesen of Milliken, CO; Marina Landegent (Daniel Clough) of Hospers, IA; Tony (Emily) Landegent of Colorado Springs, CO. Continuing her legacy are another ten great-grandchildren: Jackson, Cooper, and Anna Norine, Raymond and Ezra Landegent, Arianna and Brantley Shicks, Ava Landegent, Liliana Pallesen, and Zion Landegent. We were immensely loved by Grandma Pat!

Source: Memorial Funeral Home online obituary.