Patricia “Pat” Gresham, who was the longtime finance and book service manager of the Presbyterian Outlook, died on May 17, 2025, of kidney failure complications.
Pat was finishing high school in Richmond, Virginia, when she began working for the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation in the late 1960s. Before her retirement in 2013, she said she found joy and fulfillment in her 46-year-long tenure at the Outlook, and called her career an honor to do “what the Lord has called you to do.”
“For 46 years, the quality of her work as finance manager, book service manager and countless other tasks has been exceeded only by the heart and soul she has invested into this ministry and its subscribers,” the Outlook staff wrote at her retirement.
In 1998, she was honored at the Presbyterian Outlook’s moderator dinner during the 210th General Assembly at the Charlotte, North Carolina, Coliseum.
She “may be the best-known person on the Outlook staff,” said Robert H. Bullock, the Outlook’s editor at the time.
“I am overjoyed tonight … the excitement of this evening will be with me always,” Gresham said.
James S. Brown, the Outlook’s general manager and brother of then-Outlook editor Aubrey Brown, hired Gresham in 1967 as a part-time employee.
“When I first met her, I immediately recognized Pat as an excellent person,” Brown wrote in a letter that was read at the dinner. “Her contributions to the Outlook were crucial to its survival during some of the most difficult years since its founding. Her pleasant and appealing personality touched everyone and it is a pleasure to recall working with her.”
Reflecting on Gresham’s life, Jack Haberer, Outlook editor and publisher from 2006-2014, wrote, “What can I say about Patricia Gresham? Well, to the call-in customers of the Outlook Book Service, she always extended a warm greeting and a ‘Praise the Lord’ to lift their day.
To the readers of the Presbyterian Outlook, she always guaranteed on-time deliveries, supported by prayers for their well-being.
To the board members and fellow employees at the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation, she was always doing her best to share the load of the unrelenting duties and deadlines we faced each day.
And to everybody else, she was always bringing a witness to the amazing grace of Jesus, the unconditional love of God and the warming fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Praise God for Pat.”
Pat lived in Richmond, Virginia. The family will receive friends on May 29 from 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. at March Funeral Home, 2110 E. Laburnum Ave., Richmond. Pat’s funeral will be at noon on May 30 at 5th Street Baptist Church in Richmond.
