TOGETHER FOR LIFE— Pat Croner enjoyed a long marriage to husband Harry, and was a contributor to many Westlake Village causes over the years. Courtesy photo
Pat Croner moved to Westlake Village with her family on July 11, 1973—her 40th birthday. And for the next 50 years, she was an integral part of the town into which she fit so quickly, making a difference in areas from public schools to symphony orchestras.
Pat passed away in December at the age of 90, two-and-a-half years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Right up until early that month she was seeing friends, taking calls and keeping busy with the activities that filled her life for decades.
“We thought we were going to be here a year or two,” recalled Harry Croner, Pat’s husband of 68 years, who was transferred to the local area from Connecticut by the company he worked for. After a couple of years, “We didn’t want to go back,” Harry said.
“ My mom was one of those people who never had a problem forming connections,” said her son Larry, who started as a student at Agoura High School after the move.
“And she talks to everybody. She wants to know everybody’s story. So I don’t think any of us ever had a doubt that we were going to be connected to the community in a big hurry.”
Pat started participating in her children’s schools through parent-faculty clubs. In addition to Larry, there were daughters Julie and Terry, who began attending Lindero Canyon Middle School and White Oak Elementary, respectively.
Within a few years, Pat was the career and college advisor at Agoura High, starting around the same time Terry became a student there. Whenever she went into her mother’s office, Terry saw her friends: “She really connected with the kids.”
After Pat retired from the school in 1991, she began a one-woman private advisory service called the College Match. Sitting at a living room table in her home in Westlake’s First Neighborhood, Pat worked with students to understand their backgrounds, personalities and interests, and to devise a list of schools that would be the best fits.
A pioneer in what would become a big business, Pat raised her price just once, by around $50. As counselor fees soared into the thousands, she continued to charge a couple hundred, and saw more and more people pro bono.
Pat shepherded “tons of kids” through the sometimes-harrowing process, Terry said, slowing down in later years but still helping a couple of families annually not long ago.
One parent who brought his kids to Pat for help was Westlake Village City Councilmember Brad Halpern, a longtime neighbor of the Croners.
“She just knew all the nuances, how to speak to them in a way they respected,” Halpern said.
Halpern remembers leaving the Croners’ house with his kids and asking what they thought, concerned that they might not believe someone of Pat’s age could help them: “And they said, ‘Wow, she was great.’” Halpern himself benefited from Pat’s guidance: She was one of the people who pushed him to run for Westlake Village City Council.
The Croners represent “old school Westlake Village,” Halpern said, and were associated with the city’s founding fathers—“Bernice Bennett and all of those people who really took it upon themselves to incorporate Westlake and create what we have today. No easy task.”
Since she passed, everyone has been using the same word to describe Pat—one that Halpern hadn’t heard before, but which seems to fit: “She was a force. She was strong and cultured and sweet, and under all that force it was pretty obvious she was just warm and fuzzy.”
“The thing about Mom was that she got things done,” said Larry. “She was pretty no-nonsense. She just wanted to move the ball along. And so if somebody needed to jump on the phone and make the calls, if something needs to be organized, then she was just good at that.”
Pat applied this practical skill to supporting her passion for music, especially. A month after she was introduced to the New West Symphony League, Pat was chairing pre-concert dinners for the organization, and eventually served as its president.
She and Harry also helped the Thousand Oaks-based ensemble by participating in the Adopt-A-Musician program, serving as symbolic parents to a violinist. Pat was involved with a variety of organizations over the years, including the Democratic Women, and the Wellness Community, now the Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara.
Sadly, daughter Julie also died from complications from cancer at the age of 60.
Among Pat’s numerous other roles was board member on the local Chamber of Commerce, for which she chaired the education committee. “She really enjoyed that,” said Harry. “It was a great, great excuse to get out in the community and meet people.”
In lieu of flowers, donations are being sought for the nonprofit group OneGoal, which helps students further their academic goals.