Shelter Island Historical / Archives: Women’s History Month Introduces Patricia Shillingburg

From Our Archives:

In honor of Women’s History Month,

we’re pleased to introduce you to

Patricia Shillingburg.

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For centuries, the official historical record has been dominated by men and their voices. Women’s stories, achievements, and lives were rarely recognized or given credit. Consequently, their narratives were preserved in diaries, personal letters, and oral histories, seldom receiving public attention. Over the last century, we have seen a significant rise in female authorship. In 1960, only 18 percent of the new book market was authored by women; today, that figure has risen to over 50 percent. Despite this impressive increase, there remains a significant lack of women’s perspectives in the historical genre. In 2017, the National Women’s History Museum conducted a study of K-12 educational standards across all 50 states and found that out of 737 specific historical figures mentioned, only 178 were women. A 2016 study further revealed that 75.8 percent of popular history titles published in the U.S. were written by men.

This week, in our final chronicle of Women’s History Month, we celebrate a woman who published 15 books in her lifetime and was determined to set the record straight. Patricia Shillingburg was a passionate local historian who worked to amplify voices that our society so often overlooked. She dedicated 15 years of her life to supporting the Shelter Island History Museum through research, preservation, and storytelling.

Patricia was born in 1943 in Summit, New Jersey, but her mother’s family, the Mosers, had been present on Shelter Island since the late 1870s. A fearless and driven historian, she majored in Russian history and traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1960s. She met her husband, Ed, on a blind date in Washington, D.C., and the two married in 1967. In the 70s, Patricia embraced the personal computer and became a self-taught expert in using Adobe publishing and graphics programs to self-publish. She advocated for the value in these technological skills and wrote her first books in the 1980s to help others learn them as well. After raising a family and building an impressive career advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities, Patricia and Ed moved to Shelter Island full-time in 1999. Patricia became an active community member and was well known for her work with The Garden Club and on the Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

Patricia continued writing until her passing in 2016. The majority of her works focused on Shelter Island, particularly the Nicolls and Dering Families and their massive letter collections held by the Shelter Island History Museum. In the process of reading and transcribing these letters, Patricia was introduced to the Nicolls and Dering women. Recognizing the critical need to document women’s voices in colonial history, Patricia and Ed drew on these collections to produce Collected Letters of Charlotte Anne Nicoll 1820-1888 (2011) and Women’s Words: The Dering Letters 1734-1838 (2015) as well as others. The latter features 227 letters written by 37 women and girls spanning over four generations of the Dering Family.

Patricia came to know these women, particularly the Nicolls, intimately through their letters, which captured conversations between spouses, mothers and daughters, sisters, and cousins. These correspondences provided a portal into their lives, making it feel as though Patricia was living their experiences alongside them.

There is something truly intimate about historical research into people who are no longer living. When the only source material available is their letters and journals, we gain access to their private conversations, personal struggles, and moments of joy. In this way, they begin to seem as alive as you and I. Our executive director, Nanette, recalls how Patricia spoke of these women and their families as if they were friends she had just run into at the post office. This is what makes historical research and writing so compelling: the potential to discover a connection between yourself and someone you’ve never met who lived in a vastly different time. In Patricia’s own words, each letter “tells a story of struggle, sadness, amusement, or joy. Some will make you laugh, others will make you weep. All are memorable” (2015).

Patricia Shillingburg is dearly missed, and it is thanks to her dedication and passion for Shelter Island’s history that these women’s words—and the memories of so many other notable Islanders—will live on. The world continues to suffer from a lack of women’s voices being heard, respected, and preserved. As Women’s History Month comes to a close, may we all continue to take time to appreciate the women in our lives, listen to their stories, and ensure they are remembered.

This month, our research and writing about women from the archives have taken us to unexpected but memorable places and people. We hope these stories have deepened your connection to Shelter Island’s history and to the remarkable women who have helped shape it.

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To revisit any of the stories from our archives visit our website at www.shelterislandhistorical.org