Post Circulation Director Jack F. Patterson, 93

Jack Francis Patterson was born Feb. 8, 1915, in Bend, Ore., and grew up in Seattle. He went to the University of Washington intending to become a doctor but was forced to quit when he ran out of money.

During the Depression, he was a gravedigger, waiter, cook, fish handler and zookeeper. For several years, he worked as a nightclub singer and performed with Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw. He was also a champion skier and did stunt skiing in the 1941 movie "Sun Valley Serenade." He served in the Merchant Marine during World War II.

Mr. Patterson began working in the newspaper business in Seattle in the 1930s, tossing bundles of papers from the running board of a truck.

"He was mentored along the way by a lot of cigar-chewing guys," his son said.

Mr. Patterson helped popularize direct home delivery to suburbanites at a time when newspapers were sold largely through newsstands and street-corner hawkers. He also had a welder devise a metal box that would open when coins were dropped into a slot.

"He always claimed to be the guy who invented the coin-operated newspaper rack," his son said. "He said he did that in Seattle the '30s, but he never got a patent."

Mr. Patterson later worked at papers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, then came east in 1952, when his daughter contracted a disease that could be treated only by doctors at Johns Hopkins University. He was hired by Post Chairman Philip L. Graham, who became a close friend.

After Philip Graham's death in 1963, Mr. Patterson became a trusted adviser to Katharine Graham, who took over The Post and made it Washington's dominant newspaper. In her autobiography, she praised Mr. Patterson's "independence and drive" and called him a "pillar on whom I knew I could rely." He later served as a mentor to Donald Graham.

Mr. Patterson retired in 1984 but maintained an office at The Post for the rest of his life, offering counsel to the paper's executives and staff.

"At 92," his son said, "he was driving to the paper every day till the first of the year."

His wife of 52 years, Dorothy Rose Patterson, died in 1995.

In addition to his son, of Bethesda, survivors include two other children, Jackie Patterson of Arlington County and John F. Patterson of Toronto; and a grandson.