Patricia Walton Abbott Benzing

Patricia Benzing left this life on February 17, 2025. Pat was the daughter of the late Eileen Davis of Conway, New Hampshire, and Russell Walton of Bangor, Maine. She was born on October 4, 1941, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, where she lived for four years before moving to Conway, New Hampshire, with her mother. There she and her mother met the man who would become her father, Burnham B. Davis.

In 1959, Pat married her high school sweetheart, Robert “Bobby” Abbott. They immediately moved to Durham to attend the University of New Hampshire where she majored in education. While studying and working their way through college they had two children, Michael Abbott and Beth Abbott-Koch. Pat and Robert eventually went their separate ways but always remained connected through their children and grandchildren. 

Pat was a committed educator and taught physical education at all levels in the Mast Way and Oyster River School system for 30 years. She worked tirelessly to mentor and support the underrepresented young female student-athletes of that groundbreaking era. As well as teaching full-time, she coached numerous ORJHS sports and the ORHS Field Hockey team as she rose to the position of ORHS athletic director. 

Pat was passionate about nature and spent much of her time outside. She was an avid gardener and preferred the style of a cottage garden. One of her favorite places to garden was behind the white picket fence at her family “Camp” on Province Lake. The Lake was her happy place. The idyllic lakeside cottage was hand built by her immigrant Grandfather, Maurice Asher. Pat spent every summer of her young life there.

Not coincidently, later in life Pat fell in love with, and married, a land steward of the Province Lake Region, Joseph Benzing. Joe and Pat met at the tender age of three on the shores of Province Lake. They married in 1993 and split their time between Province Lake and Portland, Maine. She eagerly joined Joe in working to preserve the beautiful woodlands in New Hampshire and Maine. Their business earned the honor of the “Outstanding Tree Farmer of York County” in the year 2000. Sadly, Pat mourned the loss of Joe in 2016. 

Pat cherished her family and loved spending time with them. She once traveled halfway around the world to Western Australia to meet her newborn fourth grandchild. Family was always the center of her life. Pat was a generous soul who always put others before herself. She was an avid fan of the underdog. 

Pat is survived by her son, Michael Abbott and his wife Kristin Abbott; daughter, Beth Abbott-Koch and her husband Bill Abbott-Koch; four grandchildren, Kathryn Larson (Jeremy Larson), Matthew Abbott (Shay Carter), Chris Abbott-Koch (Christina Nowak), and Shayna Croft (Nick Croft); seven great-grandchildren, TJ, Nathan, Finn, Evie, Lana, Runa, and Benjamin. Her sister, Jane Miller and her children, Asher and Elvie (Denis Liddy); her great nieces, Jaden, Price, Muirin, and Dervla; and two half-brothers, Philip and Russell Walton.

In lieu of flowers please consider donations “in memory of Patricia Benzing” to one of the following:

ORHS Field Hockey Boosters

c/o Oyster River High School

55 Coe Drive

Durham, NH 03824 

 Effingham Historical Society

PO Box 33

Effingham, NH 03882