Patricia “Pat” Squire, a celebrated Toledo bicycle enthusiast, University of Toledo-trained chemical engineer, and a mother of three, died Monday at Oakleaf Village of Toledo. She was 88.
Mrs. Squire died after experiencing apparent heart problems, said Jennifer Sader, a daughter-in-law.
“For her, bicycling was even more than a passion, it was a way of life,” said Scott Carpenter, Metroparks Toledo spokesman. “She had deep roots in the Toledo bicycling community going back to the 1980s.”
Mrs. Squire never had a driver’s license and never owned a car.
“If you had a bicycle, she [simply] wouldn’t understand why you drive a car. She was able to get everywhere on her bicycle, and she was happy not to drive,” Mr. Carpenter said.
Mrs. Squire was a founding member of the Maumee Valley Adventurers cycling club.
“She was always eager and willing to give her time to any of our cycling events that we were putting on,” Judy Wright, a fellow club member, said, adding that Mrs. Squire was also “very pragmatic and very frugal.”
Ms. Sader said her mother-in-law was also “very independent, definitely quirky, and stubborn.”
“She knew the way she wanted to do things, and that’s how they were going to be done,” she said.
Walter Squire, Mrs. Squire’s second son, agreed.
“She was no pushover. She was strong-willed. And if she felt something was wrong, she wasn’t going to accept it,” he said.
Mr. Squire remembered how his mother walked the picket line when Toledo teachers went on strike in 1978. His father was a Start High School chemistry teacher at the time.
In 2018, Metroparks Toledo dedicated a new bike rack and bicycle repair station in front of the Metz Visitors Center at Wildwood Preserve Metropark to Mrs. Squire and her late husband as "Toledo's First Couple of Bicycling."
“Pat is a commuter cyclist who still pedals to the grocery store and most other places she needs to go,” Metroparks Toledo said on its website at the time, noting that the Squires had advocated for cycling since the 1980s.
Besides Maumee Valley Adventurers, Mrs. Squire was a member of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments’ bike and pedestrian committee, Toledo Area Bicyclists, and the Ohio Bicycle Federation, of which she was a former officer.
Additionally, she volunteered as a co-director of the Portage River Bicycle Tour for more than 30 years.
Together with her late husband, Raymond, she also participated in multiday bicycle tours in Ohio and neighboring states and took family bicycle trips to such destinations as Nova Scotia, the Canadian Rockies, and Puget Sound in the state of Washington.
She was also an election worker for at least 40 years and for a time volunteered as a librarian and PTA president at McKinley Elementary School.
Born March 10, 1936, in Toledo to Lucile and Lee Rynder, she graduated in 1953 from Scott High School and then attended what is now University of Toledo, graduating in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering.
She was the only woman in her graduating class.
The night before graduating, she married Raymond Squire, a fellow senior majoring in chemical engineering. They raised three sons together. He died Dec. 31, 2015, at age 84.
After graduating from UT, they worked together as chemical engineers for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. in New Jersey for a few years before moving to Cumberland, Md., where Mrs. Squire became a stay-at-home mom while her husband continued to work in chemical engineering.
In the early-1960s, they moved to Toledo so Mr. Squire could continue his career.
“She strongly identified as a mother of three sons and was very proud of all her boys,” Ms. Sader said.
Mrs. Squire cared a lot about her sons’ education, especially in music, and made sure that all of them took music classes, the daughter-in-law said.
In her free time, she enjoyed cooking and watching hockey games. She was an avid fan of the Red Wings and Canadian hockey teams.
Mrs. Squire was a longtime member of Trinity Episcopal Church on Adams Street, where she sang in the choir.
She was also a member and past president of the Toledo chapter of Church Women United.
Additionally, she was active in Diocese of Ohio Episcopal Church Women’s organizations.
Mrs. Squire was preceded in death by her parents, Lee and Lucile Rynder; brother, Jerome Rynder; sister, Constance Rynder; and son David Squire.
Surviving are her sons, Walter and Jesse Squire, and four grandchildren.
Visitation will start at 9 a.m. Friday at Trinity Episcopal Church, 316 Adams St., where funeral services will immediately follow at 11 a.m.
The family suggests tributes to the church or Toledo Bikes.
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