Elizabeth Patterson

Mary Elizabeth Patterson (November 22, 1874 – January 31, 1966) was an American theatre, film, and television character actress who gained popular recognition late in her career playing the elderly neighbor Matilda Trumbull on the television comedy series I Love Lucy. Early years Born in Savannah, Tennessee, she was the child of Mildred (née McDougal) and Edmund D. Patterson, a Confederate army veteran. Federal census records document that her father by 1880 was a lawyer and residing with his wife and children in the home of his father-in-law, Garrick Archibald McDougal, a widower, who was also a lawyer and farmer in Savannah. That same census lists Elizabeth as the second child of the Pattersons' four offspring. She had an older sister, Annie Belle, and two younger brothers, Edmund and Archie. Stage She was educated at Tennessee colleges in Pulaski and Columbia, where her participation in campus theater groups fostered a growing passion for drama. Her parents soon sent her to Europe in hopes of diminishing her interest in theater; yet, Patterson's determination to become an actress was only reinforced during those travels, especially in Paris, where she attended productions of the Comédie Française. After returning from Europe, Patterson used money from a small inheritance to move to Chicago. There she joined a theatrical troupe and subsequently toured with repertory companies. In 1913, she made her Broadway debut in the play Everyman. She remained active in New York City theatre through 1954.