August 3, 1931 – December 29, 2025
Patricia Cutkosky, a Los Altos resident since 2019, passed away on December 29, 2025. She was 94.
Pat was born Aug. 3, 1931, to Eudora and Robert Klepfer and raised in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. She graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School and attended Muskingum College before starting work in a lab at Carnegie-Mellon University.
There she met physics graduate student Richard E. Cutkosky. They married in 1952. Dick accepted a faculty position at CMU, and the couple settled in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where they raised their three children. Pat would live in their Wightman Street house for 60 years.
Pat involved herself in faculty social activities and volunteered at her children’s schools. She was active in the League of Women Voters and at Third Presbyterian Church. She belonged to several book clubs, supported public television and environmental causes, and regularly attended chamber music and opera concerts. She was an accomplished and original knitter, providing her children and grandchildren with lovely sweaters for decades.
Pat and Dick traveled widely. The family spent several summers at the Aspen Center for Physics, and lived in Copenhagen, Cambridge and Oxford when Dick was on sabbaticals. After Dick died in 1993, Pat continued to travel, enjoying trips to Iceland, Canada, England’s Lake District, France and Tuscany.
In declining health, Pat moved to Bridgepoint Los Altos in 2019 to be closer to family.
In addition to her husband, Pat was predeceased by her half-sister, Mary Rickley Lawson. She is survived by her son Mark Cutkosky (Pamela Reasner) of Palo Alto; daughters Carol Bertaut (Edgard) of San Francisco and Martha Varadan (Anand) of Ave Maria, Fla.; nephew George Rickley (Evelyn); grandchildren Jules Bertaut (Lucas Sanders), Katherine Bertaut, Char Cutkosky, Lara Phippen (Colton), Richard Varadan (Carolyn), Grant Varadan (Charlott), Robert Varadan (Brittney), Johnny Varadan, Teresa Varadan, Nicole Varadan and Margaret Varadan; and great-grandchildren Walter, Terese, George, Wade, Lillian and Henry.
Pat’s family thanks the staff at Bridgepoint for making Pat’s last years pleasant ones.
A memorial service is planned for 11 o’clock on February 28 at First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto.
