By Ron Hayes DELRAY BEACH — During her 40 years in the area,
Elizabeth Matthews Paton played golf at The Little Club in Gulf
Stream, and she wrote its history. She enjoyed the beach, and
worked to beautify it. Mrs. Paton, who died May 22, had celebrated
her 90th birthday with a gathering of 20 family members on Dec. 6,
2008, at the St. Andrew's Club, where she had lived since 1994. A
Par 3 course built on the site of a former polo club, The Little
Club was already a decade old when Betty Paton joined in 1978, but
two decades later, she would write The Little Club, 1968-1998, a
detailed history of the club's first 30 years. She was not
comfortable with the word, however. “The word history is far too
pretentious a description of this small volume," she wrote in her
foreword to the 44-page, illustrated booklet. But history it was,
and throughly researched, beautifully written history, too. “She
was a dynamo," remembers Gulf Stream Mayor Bill Koch, “a real lover
of the club, who gave her time and effort to make it what is is.”
Dot Riley met Mrs. Paton not long after she arrived in Delray Beach
and the two remained best friends for the next 40 years. “We did
crazy things together, and stupid things together, and good things
together,” Riley recalled, “but we survived, and I shall miss her.
She was a loyal person with very wide and varied interests.” In
addition to serving as a governor and officer of The Little Club,
Mrs. Paton was the secretary of the Beach Property Owners’
Association for 17 years, until her retirement in 1991. She was
also a chair of the city's Beach Advisory Council and worked with
the City Commission to add public walkways and showers to the
oceanfront. After moving to the St. Andrew's Club, she served as
president from 2000-2002. “Her dedication and devotion to the
community are what's most expressive of what she was like,” said
Pat Stewart of Gulf Steam, another longtime friend. “She was
terribly bright, very articulate and devoted to her family and
friends.” Born Nov. 23, 1918, in Montclair, N.J., Elizabeth Ann
Hughes earned a bachelor of science degree in education from
Rutgers University in 1940 and a master’s degree in communications
from the American University in Washington, D.C., in 1959. Her
first husband, William Henry Matthews, died in 1992 after 32 years
of marriage, and she married William John Ross Paton in 1994. He
died in June 1996. Locally, she is survived by a nephew, James Tim
Hughes of Boca Raton, and a niece, Katherine Hughes of Delray Beach
and London, England. She is also survived by two stepdaughters,
Pamela Fulge, of Bethesda, Md.; and Miriam Munro, of Los Angeles,
Calif., 10 grandchidren and 16 great-grandchildren. A memorial
service was held June 6 at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in
Delray Beach, followed by interment next to her first husband in
Greenwich, Conn. The family requests donations be made to the
Memory & Wellness Center at Florida Atlantic University or
Hospice of Palm Beach County.
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