Childhood, military service, and education Patterson was born on January 30, 1927, in
Richmond, Virginia, the only son of Margaret Snoddy (
née Sargent; 1902–1987), a
nurse, and Robert Hobson Patterson (1892–1985), a
railroad engineer and
United States Navy veteran of
World War I. His paternal grandfather, George W. Patterson of
Buckingham County, Virginia was a
second lieutenant in the
Confederate States Army during the
American Civil War. He grew up in Richmond's working-class
Church Hill neighborhood. of the corps of cadets at
John Marshall High School, meeting Governor
Colgate Darden in 1943 Patterson attended the public
John Marshall High School in downtown Richmond, serving as
first captain of its
corps of cadets during his senior year. After graduating high school in 1944, he entered the
Virginia Military Institute and was elected vice president of his class but was expelled the following year for being a troublemaker. He chose to enlist in the Navy and served during the closing months of
World War II. In 1946, despite being offered an appointment to the
United States Naval Academy, he returned to VMI, where he studied history. He later attended the
University of Virginia School of Law, where he was selected to be on the staff of the
Virginia Law Review. He graduated with a
Bachelor of Laws degree in 1952. They went on to have three children: India, Robert III, and Margaret. Luise died in on January 17, 2001. Patterson later married Anne Marie Whittemore, a partner at McGuireWoods who served as his co-counsel in the VMI case, on November 15, 2003. In 1971, he was the only partner to oppose hiring Whittemore as an associate, voting on the basis of her sex, though he later admitted to having changed his mind about her. ==Later life and death==