Patricia Eleanor Kohler (b. 1933)
Patricia Kohler was born near Keremeos, British Columbia and grew up on the family ranch and orchard. She married and had four children and was busy driving up and down the highway transporting fruits and vegetables from the farm. She separated from her husband and the children were grown when she decided to move to Alaska and then Yukon at age forty. She arrived in Whitehorse in 1971 and started work right away cooking at the Travelodge and cleaning buses for Atlas Travel. She started driving for Atlas and got her commercial license in Edmonton in 1975.1)
Patricia was among those who formed the Mini Bus Transit system in Whitehorse. The group used five Fleury mini-buses painted lime green. The system was so successful and needed that the city took it over in 1981.2)
Patricia met and married her second husband Ted Freser, a driller for the federal government. They volunteered for many years to make the Elks Lodge steak dinners a success. Ted died in 2006 and Patricia remained an enthusiastic volunteer at the Golden Age Society and the Anglican Church.3)
In 2020, Patricia Kohler was awarded the Governor General’s Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers for her work in breaking the isolation of seniors by organizing recreational activities and volunteering at the foot care clinic, and for her involvement in bake sales and dinners to raise funds for the Christ Church Cathedral in Whitehorse.4)