Patricia A.T. Casement

Patricia Althea Tilden Casement died of cancer on Nov. 22 at New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton, Mass., following a long illness. She was 84 years old.

Ms. Casement knew from an early age that she wanted to be a high school mathematics teacher, her family reported. Although she had lived in Canada for a time, she was brought up in Montauk and graduated from East Hampton High School as valedictorian of the class of 1944. She earned a full scholarship to Albany Teachers College of the State University and received an M.A. in mathematics from Hofstra University. She taught in the New York State public school system, retiring from the Hampton Bays School District.

Her family wrote that she loved swimming, fishing, clamming, bowling, and other sports and knitting baby blankets or sweaters for her family and friends. She doted on her grandchildren, they said.

Ms. Casement spent much of her time after retiring as a volunteer for the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, an educational and research center based near Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada, where she had lived a number of years.

Ms. Casement, who was called Patsy, was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 1, 1927, to Hannah White Tilden and Henry J. Tilden. Her first husband, William R. Novak, died before her, as did her sister, Gloria. Ms. Casement 's twin brother, Frank Tilden of Bristol, Tenn., survives.

She is also survived by a son, William Novak of Los Angeles, and her daughters, Hannah Anderson of New Milford, Conn., and Pamela Novak of Cookeville, New Brunswick, as well as by five grandchildren, and six nieces and nephews.

Ms. Casement will be cremated at a private family gathering and her ashes spread over the waters off Montauk, which she referred to as God 's country. Donations in her name have been suggested to the Atlantic Wildlife Institute, online at www.atlanticwildlife.ca, the Montauk Community Church, P.O. Box 698, Montauk 11954, or to a charity of one 's choice.