d. 1974
Though a busy magazine editor most of her life, especially at Look Magazine, Coffin was also a prolific watercolorist. Many of her paintings were done on Nantucket where she vacationed for a month each summer; usually at her electricity-free duck shack on Quidnet Pond. Her simple paintings of the island and its life evoked the feel of Nantucket. On many a summer’s day she could be seen pedaling her bicycle, laden with fresh flowers and artist’s trappings, to various points all over Nantucket. Pat also wrote poetry and was an early member of the infamous Wharf Rat Club. She is an origianal descendant of Tristram Coffin, the island’s founder.
Coffin authored the 1970 book Nantucket, with photos by master documentary photographer David Plowdon.
Of New York, Coffin wrote: “Behind the facade of this pushing, friendly, cruel, cultured, rich and ragged city, there is another town, a ‘small’ town. … Mine includes a grocer who delivers my order to the corner liquor store if I’m home late from the office. There is also the Italian shoemaker who chalks ‘5-A’ on the soles of my shoes without asking where I live. ‘Tomarra,’ he says.”
Mrs. Patricia Coffin Lindsay, who as Patricia Coffin was well‐known society and magazine writer in this city, died, apparently of a stroke, in YaleNew Haven Hospital yesterday. She lived in this city and Branford, Conn.
Miss Coffin had been a writer and editor on Life and Look magazines, a painter and a poet. She was also an author, and her most recent book was “1,2,3,4,5,6 — How to Understand and Enjoy Your Child During the Years That Count.” Her books also included “Nantucket” and “The Gruesome Green Witch.”
With Look 25 Years
A major portion of her career was involved with Look, where during a 25‐year period she had been modern‐living editor, special‐issues editor, woman’s‐interest editor, entertainment editor and a member of the editorial board.
As a painter, Miss Coffin had one‐woman shows in New York Nantucket, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
She was a director of the Poetry Society of America and a contributing editor of Panache Magazine, where her own poetry appeared. She also contributed to The Prairie Schooner, poet Lore, Harper’s, McCall’s and Ladies’ Home Journal.