Evelina Teresa Estes

Evelina Teresa Estes passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of February 23, 2025 at the age of 88.

She was born in Izmir (Smyrne), Turkey on September 10, 1936, to Andrea Sponza and Anna Ionnides. She enjoyed a lively, cultured way of life among the Levantines of Izmir, a historic community of Europeans whose families had settled in Turkey’s Aegean region to trade with the Ottoman Empire. In Izmir, she put her Levantine multilingualism (Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, and English) to use as a switchboard operator for NATO for ten years, and it was there that she met George Estes, the American serviceman who would become her husband for almost sixty years. She married George in 1965 and moved to the United States, where she worked as a switchboard operator for Merrill Lynch before choosing to spend her time caring for her young son, James. She was dedicated to, and will be remembered for, her roles as mother and wife.

Evelina was a compassionate soul who modeled kindness to all God’s creatures. She cared for family, friends, and animals, with special attention to those in need. A lifelong Roman Catholic, she was baptized at Santissimo Rosario (Izmir), and later became a member of St. Bernardine of Siena parish (Suitland, Maryland). She had special devotion to St. Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of lost causes.

She traveled frequently to visit family in Turkey, Italy, and Greece, almost always with her son. With her husband and other family members, she also enjoyed cruises and trips to other destinations, especially the Turks and Caicos Islands. She appreciated music, and was particularly fond of Engelbert Humperdinck (the twentieth-century pop balladeer, not the nineteenth-century German composer), and Italian pop-opera trio Il Volo. She was perhaps less fond of bluegrass and country music, but she tolerated it for George’s sake.

Toward the end of her life, she was diagnosed with mild dementia. In early 2025, her struggle with dementia became more pronounced, which led to her move to Parry Home Assisted Living (Silver Spring, Maryland). Although her stay there was brief, Parry Home played an important role in her end-of-life care.

She is remembered with deep affection by her husband, George (canım); her son, James (Washington, DC); her sister, Mary Santos (Suitland, Maryland) and her brother, Renato Sponza (Vittorio Veneto, Italy), and their families; and the many people she embraced as family over the course of her life. 

Family will receive friends for a memorial service hosted at Advent Funeral and Cremation, 9013 Annapolis Road, Lanham, Maryland 20706 on Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 2pm. Rapp Funeral and Cremation is entrusted with the arrangements. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Dementia Society of America, or Montgomery Hospice & Prince George’s Hospice.