Pat Forciea Sadowski died on Oct.18, 2008, after a lengthy illness. Pat was a special person who laid the groundwork for much of what has become Irish Milwaukee. For over fifty years she instilled an Irish sensibility for the city and State. She was one of the first people to do ceili dancing in Milwaukee, along with her husband, Gene. Today this has blossomed into a vital part of the Milwaukee community. 

She later served as the Shamrock Club of Wisconsin's dance coordinator for Folk Fair. She was Irish Rose for the Shamrock Club, and was a longtime volunteer for the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center. Her husband Gene was a founding member of the Shamrock Club Color Guard, a unit that has since marched many of the country's largest St Patrick's Day Parades, including New York and Savannah, Chicago, San Antonio and New Orleans, as well as being one of the few American units chosen to represent the United States at the 1989 Dublin Millennium Parade.

She was Volunteer of the Year for Milwaukee Irish Fest, and ran the Irish Fest Summer School's sales booth at the festival before shifting over to work at the Shamrock Club's information booth. She was also the School's longtime intermediary at UW Milwaukee during the week. 

Sadowski decorated the governor's mansion in Madison for the Irish for Christmas. She was also the membership chair for the Shamrock Club, where she had the added task of hand labeling 1500 newsletters a month. She also made certain that Nollaig Shona Duit was in every December issue of the Emerald Reflections, the Shamrock Club newsletter, because, without it being written in Irish, it wasn't an Irish Christmas. 

Irish Fest 2008 was the first one she missed since the festival's inception in 1981.

For a small, quiet woman, she was an impressive presence. 
Slan go foill, Pat, agus go mbeannaí Dia duit. Agus Nollaig shona duit, aris. Goodbye, and God bless you, Pat. And Happy Christmas again.