Yolanda N. Eldred

Yolanda N. Eldred January 6, 1920 - June 7, 2014 Orinda, California On the evening of Saturday June 7th Yolanda Eldred passed peacefully from the world she loved so much into the arms of her Savior, whom she loved even more. Yolanda died exactly as she wanted, at home, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Yolanda was born January 6, 1920 in the small town of Savannah, New York. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, she moved to Walton, New York, where she met and married her sweetheart, Charles Perez, when she was seventeen. Tragically, her young husband was killed in World War II. Yolanda moved to New York City. There she studied acting at New York University and then worked with stage productions in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She subsequently worked as a legal secretary for the District Attorneys Office in Boston, Massachusetts, and then as a medical secretary and transcriptionist at the Long Island College of Medicine, where she met her husband to-be, Jim in 1949. She and Jim were married in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1950. That same year they moved to San Francisco where Jim did his residency en-route to becoming a highly respected thoracic surgeon in Contra Costa County. With four children in tow, and another on the way, Yolanda and Dr. Eldred moved to Orinda in 1955 where they and their eventual brood of six little swimmers became the quintessential Orinda Park Pool family. During a temporary absence from Orinda beginning in 1978 when Dr. Eldred served as an army surgeon at Fort Hood, Texas, Yolanda worked as a realtor in the neighboring town of Killeen. They euphorically returned to Orinda and the family house in 1982. Yolanda's interest in the stage never waned. She was for decades a season ticket holder and regular attendee at all Shakespeare plays performed at the Bruns Theater in the Orinda hills, and Yolanda herself had a small role in a TV series when she was eighty-nine. Yolanda was sustained throughout her life by her love for God and her family. Her enduring passions were cooking for family and friends gathered boisterously around her long dining room table; raising champion Bouviers; Shakespeare; and, of course, opera. Yolanda absorbed a love of the sublime voices and arias of opera from her father, a New York cheese maker, who loved to listen to the great early-twentieth century tenors and sopranos on the family gramophone record player. Serendipitously, her husband had a similar love of opera and furthered the family tradition. Over the final years of her life, Yolanda enjoyed one of her many opera DVDs almost every day, including the day before she passed away. At least once a month she could be heard to lament, 'Isn't it sad that most young people today don't have a love for opera.' When the breath of life slowed in Yolanda this past Saturday, and then finally and quietly stopped altogether, this wonderful, loving, and self-sacrificing wife and mother was delivered into the beckoning arms of her Lord on the wings of her cherished arias, whose soulfulness cradled her at death as it had blessed her in life. Yolanda is survived by her children Mary Lee Loughman, Dina Fiatarone, Juliet Montagnon, Jim Eldred, and Roxanne Wieber; by her grandchildren Maria, Carlo, Jimmy, Annalisa, and Gianni Fiatarone; Travis and Denver Schaffarzick; Carmen and Michael Montagnon; and Brenna and Ryan Wieber; and by her great-grandchildren Damian, Tanner, and Caleb. Yolanda is predeceased by her husband, Col. W. James Eldred MD, F.A.C.S., and by her son Charles. Friends and family are invited to a Rosary, 7 pm, Thursday, June 12th at OAK PARK HILLS CHAPEL, 3111 N. Main St., Walnut Creek, CA; and to gather at Santa Maria Church in Orinda Saturday June 14th at 9:30am for the open-casket viewing, and at 10:00am for a Funeral Mass. All are welcome for a reception at the Eldred home at 7 Via Farallon, Orinda at 2:00pm. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be directed to: Salesion Missions Attn: Adam Rudin 2 Lefevre Lane New Rochelle, NY 10801 (Please add the notation: 'In Memory of Yolanda Eldred.' These donations will be earmarked for a boys orphanage in Sierra Leone.) Private interment at Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Lafayette, CA. Visitation Saturday, June 14, 2014 09:30 am-10:00 am Santa Maria Catholic Church 40 Santa Maria Way Orinda CA 94563 Funeral Mass Saturday, June 14, 2014 10:00 am Santa Maria Catholic Church 40 Santa Maria Way Orinda CA 94563 Recitation of the Rosary Thursday, June 12, 2014 07:00 pm OAK PARK HILLS CHAPEL 3111 N. MAIN ST. Walnut Creek CA 94597