Patricia Ruth Phillips Silleck, formerly of Bronxville, N.Y., and Greenwich, Conn., died peacefully on November 21 in Littleton, where she was residing in a nursing home. She had been in ill health for the past few years.
A popular and respected antiques dealer for many years, Pat was born in Oakland, Calif., in 1924 and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Pat graduated from the Punahou School in Honolulu and attended Mills College in Oakland. She met her husband, Robert Bosworth Silleck, a naval officer on one of the first destroyers to arrive in Hawaii, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Their son, Robert Haydn Silleck, was born in 1944. At the conclusion of the war in the Pacific, the Sillecks attended a party in Honolulu the night before Commander Silleck’s destroyer was to return to San Diego, leaving his wife and infant son to wait some time until a transport became available. Late that evening in the jubilant and intoxicating mood of the occasion, Commander Silleck and his fellow officers decided to sneak Pat and their son onto the destroyer for the voyage back to the mainland. While at sea the next morning the commander introduced the new passengers to his crew. The young couple and their son arrived safely in San Diego five days later.
After the war, the Sillecks settled in Scarsdale, N.Y. Pat was a model in New York City in her 20s and then decided to try her hand at antiques. She went on to open and operate Patricia Silleck Antiques and Silleck and French Antiques in Greenwich and Bridgehampton, On Consignment in Bronxville and, with her daughter Randi, Consign It in Greenwich. Pat was a member of the Appraisers Association of America and was a regular participant in major antiques shows on the East Coast, including the East Side Antiques Show in New York City.
Pat was predeceased by her husband in 2005. In addition to her son Haydn of Littleton, Pat is survived by her daughter, Patricia Ranlet Conway of Greenwich, her sister, Colleen Morrow of Honolulu, as well as four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She was predeceased by her son, John Howland Silleck, and her grandson, John Phillips Conway.
A memorial service will be conducted at a future date and her ashes scattered off Waikiki at the Outrigger Canoe Club. Donations in Pat’s memory may be made to the John Phillips Conway Memorial Fund at Deerfield Academy, Deerfield MA 10342.
