In Our Care
Eric Thor Churchwell
Celebration of Life
July 27th, 2024 at 1:30pm Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica, CA
Today, and every day moving forward, we will celebrate the life of our brother, an all-around kindly loyal soul, Eric Thor Churchwell. A longtime resident and beloved member of the Westborough community, who departed on June 22, 2024, at the young age of 51 in South San Francisco, California.
Eric was born on March 15, 1973, to his loving parents, Dr. Caesar and Ruth Churchwell in San Francisco, California.
Beginning at a young age, and throughout his high school, and college years, “E. Church” was known as an outstanding athlete. Energetically playing basketball, football, baseball, and running track. As an adult, “Uncle Bubble” loved watching the youth play sports. He was continuously cheering on the sidelines with a big warm smile on his face.
In his early adult life, “Loc” travelled to Texas and lived there for several years. In the year 2000 he met Iselle Correa, and together in 2003, they had the astounding Caesar Jahmal Churchwell, the light of Eric’s life.
“Bubble” was a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan and a die-hard 76ers fan. The love of his favored teams would often have him in several spirited debates with friends and especially his crew. Eric brought immense joy and happiness to everyone around him. His charming smile and infectious laugh will be deeply missed.
Eric is preceded in death by his father, Dr. Churchwell, his mother, Ruth, and his brother, Budd.
Our brother is survived by his son Caesar, sister Gabrielle, brother Jonathan, nephew Jason, and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends.
Eric’s Earthly presence was genuinely felt by all who were fortunate to have known him. His spirit will live on in the memories we hold dear.
Rest Peacefully in Paradise Eric Thor Churchwell
A celebration of life will be held at
Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica, CA
July 27th, 2024 at 1:30pm
Vyolet Chu
Celebration of Life
August 9, 2024 at 11:00am
Vyolet Chu, at 101 years old, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her children, Dorinne Low and Alan Chu. She is predeceased by her loving husband, Daniel and her 2nd daughter, Liane. She was the last of 9 children to leave this life.
Vyolet is survived by her daughter, Dorinne Low, son, Alan Chu; grandsons, Christian Low, Ryan Low (Panner), Todd Low, Kumar Corcoran; great grandchildren, Santino Low, Nina Low, Simone Low; and many nieces and nephews.
Vyolet was a pillar of the Chinese community having been a founding member and past president of the Chinese Historical Society of America. She served as an officer for the Chinese Cultural Center and was appointed by Dianne Feinstein and served as Asian Art Commissioner for the City of San Francisco for 12 years.
Vyolet and Daniel came to San Francisco from Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1954 with their two daughters, Dorinne and Liane. In 1957, their son Alan was born. Vyolet worked for Singer Sewing Company and after some years, took a position with Trader Vic's as buyer for all of the restaurant's gift shops.
She eventually opened her own wig and cosmetics store aptly name Ultra Vyolet's in the 1960's. She furnished hair pieces to cancer patients who had lost their hair due to treatments. She had made such an impact for so many cancer patients that she received an award from the American Cancer Society.
At the age of 45, she went back to school to earn her bachelor's degree and graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of San Francisco. She never slowed down with her fundraising efforts for worthy projects until her 80's and even then, was mentoring her juniors. Even after retirement, Vyolet continued to give her time toward community fund raising.
One of her fund-raising efforts was for building a school computer lab in Xishuangbana in Yunnan Province, China, for the indigent teenage girls in the region.
Not one to let moss gather, Vyolet and Daniel traveled extensively. Their trips took them to China, Russia, Europe, the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and of course Hawaii. One of the last things she said she wanted to do was to go back to Honolulu in June 2024 to see the King Kamehameha Day Parade "one last time" as she put it, as traveling was getting to be just too difficult for her.
A celebration of Vyolet’s life will be held on August 9, 2024, 11am-2pm, at Fernwood Cemetery, 301 Tennessee Valley Road, Mill Valley, Ca. Please RSVP to [email protected] if you plan to attend.cp
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Vyolet Chu’s name to your favorite charity or to The American Cancer Society or The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
Barbara Anne Ferst
April 3,1934 - June 23, 2024
Barbara Anne Ferst passed away in her home in Larkspur, California on Sunday June 23rd, 2024 surrounded by her family and loved ones. Barbara is survived by her five children Kathleen Sell (Paul), Susan Berger (Don), Stephen Ferst, Daniel Ferst (Daphne), David Ferst (Melissa), and her ten grandchildren. She had been battling chronic physical pain from a back operation twenty years earlier. Despite her constant pain, she remained a loyal and caring mother and grandmother – she will be sorely missed.
Barbara, or Bobbie as we endearingly called her, was born in Long Island, New York on April 3, 1934. She attended Hofstra University and immediately began a career with Time and Life Magazine in New York City.
While working for Time and Life she met our father Richard Edward Ferst. This would be the beginning of a sixty-two-year marriage which yielded six children and a fascinating life in six countries—Havana, Cuba; Caracas, Venezuela; Mexico City, Mexico; Los Gatos, California; São Paulo, Brazil; and Toronto, Canada before retiring to Los Gatos in 1985 with Richard. It is safe to say that if two people were meant to be together it would be our parents. Their love was strong and abiding.
Barbara was a loving, happy and devoted wife and mother. She was also an avid tennis player throughout her life, a successful real estate agent, talented bridge player, and an excellent hostess to our father’s overseas business and social engagements. Bobbie was always positive and supportive of our father and her children. When assigned to a foreign post, she quickly immersed herself in the new culture creating a comfortable home for her family where they could feel safe and thrive in their new environment.
While she struggled the last twenty years of her life, she maintained a positive outlook and was there for her five surviving children and ten grandchildren in the best possible way she could. She loved her family and would do anything for them. She will be greatly missed by all of us, and the friends she accumulated in her travels abroad.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to one of her favorite organizations, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation by clicking on the Donate Now button on www.t2t.org and clicking the “Dedicate donation in memory of” box and entering her name. Alternatively, you can email [email protected] in memory of her, or contact the organization at 718-987-1931 to make your donation by phone.
Service and interment will be held in Los Gatos, California where she will be buried next to Richard, her husband, and loyal companion of sixty-two years.
Elsie Schiff Yeager
December 23, 1927 – June 11, 2024
Elsie Yeager of Walnut Creek, CA passed away peacefully and with dignity on June 11 in her Rossmoor home. She was 96 years old and remained fiercely independent throughout her final days. Born and raised in Montreal to a family of Jewish immigrants who emigrated to Canada from Poland, Elsie excelled at school and had a passion for classical music She loved playing the piano from an early age and studied the instrument seriously into young adulthood, taught piano for a few years, and then played for her own enjoyment for most of her life.
In 1950, Elsie Schiff married Jack Yeager after meeting him while taking lessons from the same piano teacher. The couple shared their love of music and their lives for the next 63 years. When her only son, Mark, was born, Elsie devoted herself to being an exceptionally devoted mother and meticulous homemaker and took pride in maintaining a spotless home and becoming an extraordinary cook and baker, preparing delicious meals and baked goods for which she was renowned.
After 40 years in Montreal, Elsie, Jack, and Mark moved to Boston where Jack accepted a managerial position with the Gillette Company. In 1970 they settled in the town of Dover, southwest of Boston, where Elsie and Jack enjoyed small-town life and the pastoral countryside for the next 43 years. In 2013 when declining health made it too difficult to maintain the Dover home, Elsie and Jack moved to a new condo in the nearby Boston suburb of Natick. Elsie was instrumental in advocating for this change and finally convinced Jack, after years of perseverance, that downsizing to a one-level condo was a necessity. Elsie loved the ease of condo living but unfortunately Jack’s failing health led to his passing away 9 months later. Faced with an exceedingly difficult life choice, Elsie agreed (after being persuaded by her son) that she should relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area to be close to Mark and his spouse, Tim.
In December 2014, Elsie moved into a newly renovated condo in the Rossmoor community in Walnut Creek. At age 86 she adapted well to her new California life, loving the mild weather, enjoying attending concerts and exploring new cuisine in the Bay Area’s fine restaurants for several years until chronic pain severely limited her mobility. Despite many health challenges, she remained determined to live independently, which was made possible by her son's care, and the additional assistance of dedicated outside caregivers in her final months.
Elsie was predeceased by her husband Jack Yeager, her brother Harry Schiff and is survived by her son Mark Yeager, son-in-law Tim Blevins, nephew Jack Yeager, niece Linda Schiff and their respective families. A celebration of her life will be held at Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley on June 27 at 2:30 pm. She will also be remembered at a private reception at the home of her cousin in Wellesley Massachusetts on July 12.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Elsie’s honor to the Music at Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute. Click the below link to donate.
https://musicatmenlo.my.salesforce-sites.com/donate/?dfId=a0nHr000007zatfIAA
Remembering Maryanne Kayiatos
Thursday, June 6th, 2024 1pm-2pm
Dear friends and family,
It brings me great sadness to announce the passing of my one-of-a-kind aunt—one of the all-time greats—Mary Anne Kayiatos.
She fought like hell for the rich, full, aesthete’s existence she’d made for herself, and remained active, on her phone and on her feet, dressed up, decked out, with full makeup and Big Apple—red manicure, digging in the garden dirt down to her last days on earth. Concluding a ferocious four-year fight with cancer, she died at home, surrounded by loved ones and caregivers in her beautifully appointed Van Ness apartment, on the evening of Thursday, May 30, 2024.
Mary Anne was a tough old broad, as she liked to say, with a New York—specific grit that never got washed away. Born in Brooklyn in the nineteen forties, she made her way back to Manhattan by the seventies, following a seldom mentioned juvenile stint in Jersey City. Perhaps because her formative years—bridge and tunnel be damned!—afforded her a three-sixty view of the Statue of Liberty, Mary Anne was destined from the get-go to be larger than life.
Pulling herself up by the bootstraps, she put herself through business school at Baruch College and became a real-life Mad (Wo)Man: a lady Don Draper with closely cropped burgundy curls, big Linda Carter—glasses, and a dirty martini, extra dry, three olives on the side.
It was at this time, as she soared to the top of her mostly male profession, that she began getting down after hours with the bustling downtown art scene. Once it started, her love affair with art proved infinite and intricate: over time she would be an artist’s darling, a muse, a patron, a student, an expert, a collector, and an admirer—often many things at once. But Mary Anne and art, like Mary Anne Anne and Manhattan, should never be thought apart from each other.
Indeed, her big, bedazzled heart pumped and bumped to the rhythm of New York—even after she relocated to a shaky San Francisco in 1989, in order to be nearby her younger brother John and his family. She wrapped her impressive advertising career up with a bow in the Bay Area and enjoyed an early retirement, in which she brought her East Coast—borne interest in art out west by volunteering as a docent for the young at multiple museums (SF MoMA, the DeYoung, the Museum of Asian Art), as well as the Strybing Arboretum. Inspired by the comparative spaciousness of her new state, Mary Anne cultivated a passion for gardening in the plot she maintained for thirty years at the Fort Mason Community Garden. She won awards for her roses and earned a reputation as an aficionado of flowers and a flower floozy.
Much like her many closets, Mary Anne’s life was absolutely stuffed to the brim with her favorite things: fine art, good food, fun times, fascinating people. She was a true lover of pleasure and a grower of beauty, whose greatest masterpiece was her life itself.
Mary Anne is survived by her niece, Anastasia Kayiatos; her nephew, Rocco Kayiatos-Smith, and his wife, Tricia; and her sister-in-law, Diana Kayiatos. Although a confirmed bachelorette with no children of her own, Mary Anne was indeed everybody’s fabulous Auntie Mame, and she will be missed by the countless “nieces,””nephews,” and friends she found both near and far over her glorious eighty-three years.
Thank you for adding something special to my Auntie Mary Anne’s life and keeping her memory sparkling and vital.
With appreciation,
Anastasia Kayiatos
Peter Franc Strauss
(1933-2024)
Peter Franc Strauss passed away peacefully at home in Oakland, CA on March 13, 2024. He was 90 years old. In his final days, he was surrounded with love and cared for by his children and stepchildren.
Peter was born in Boston, MA on December 3, 1933 to Ruth Franc Strauss (1900-1984) and Dr. Maurice Benjamin Strauss (1904- 1974). He spent most of his childhood in Newtonville, MA, where he lived with his father, mother, sister, and grandmother. His father, Maurice Strauss, was a renowned physician, medical administrator, teacher, and writer of medical journal articles and books. His mother was civic-minded and devoted herself to volunteer work for organi- zations including a Jewish settlement house for immigrants, the Red Cross, and the League of Women Voters for which she volunteered until the end of her life. Peter’s beloved younger sister Barbara was his closest companion until her untimely death from a rare kidney disease at age 14. Peter’s maternal grandmother, Lena Franc, fondly called Nanny by the children, moved into his childhood home when his father went to war in 1943.
Peter was a senior in high school when his sister Barbara died, and as soon as he graduated at the age of 17, he joined the army. With a strong proficiency in language, he was sent to the Army Language School (now known as the Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, CA, where he learned and became fluent in modern Greek. He spent the last 16 months of his enlistment in Salzburg, Austria. After Peter was discharged from the Army, he came back to Massachusetts where he attended Amherst College, his father’s alma mater.
Peter moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1962 and made California his lifelong home. He famously had many jobs during his first decade in California, including going door-to-door selling insurance policies, serving as janitor at an Episcopal church in exchange for room and board, driving Muni streetcars, and teaching high school English, along with being a traveling salesman pitching aluminum siding, candy machines, and corre- spondence courses.
In 1971, while still a counselor at San Ramon High School, Peter founded Discovery Center in Danville and spent 18 years there as director. What started as casual meetings with troubled students in the parking lot of the Fosters Freeze became a community institution that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021. After Discovery and until re- tirement, Peter had a private practice, and also worked as an employee assistance counselor.
Peter and his first wife, Margaret Nura Clegg, were married in San Francisco in 1964 and had their first child, Jenny in 1965, followed by Joshua in 1966.
In addition to his work, Peter was an avid amateur (ham) radio operator with a penchant for being able to send very fast morse code. This lifelong hobby began shortly after World War II, when a neighbor loaned Peter an army aircraft radio that tuned to one ham band. He tried many hobbies over the years, including golf, but came back to amateur radio after many years. He was also one of the organizers of the local emergency response network, which also served to bring neighbors together in friendship and community.
Peter was well known as a community builder who co-created the Top of Broadway Terrace group. He knew his neighbors by name, and always made a point to welcome and include everyone - and say hello on his daily walks around “the island.”
He was also a dedicated member of the Netivot Shalom community, having served as the head of the chevra kaddisha tahara team for many years, the editor of Paths of Torah (an anthology of drashot by congregants), treasurer of the board, a weekly volunteer in the front office, and head of a rabbi search committee. He also volunteered as a regular “friend” to congregants who had recently lost a loved one; this meant getting together with a mourner monthly for support, sometimes with this relationship lasting for years. This, after becoming bar mitzvah at the age of 61, a profoundly proud moment for him, his family, and his Jewish community.
The love of Peter’s life was Nan Strauss, who preceded him in death by four years. Nan and Peter met in 1984, and were married in 1985. Meeting each other not only totally changed and enriched their lives, but the lives of their children as well. Nan’s children, Amy Gurowitz and Eric Gurna, lived with them in their home on Pine Needle Drive in the Oakland hills as teens/young adults. Nan and Peter filled their life with rich experiences
- they loved going to the symphony and theater and traveled the world together. Both were incredibly loving grandparents who gave generously of their attention and time to their nine grandchildren, all of whom miss them greatly. Peter and Nan remained utterly devoted to one another for over 35 years.
Peter is survived by his daughter, Jenny Strauss, her spouse, Em Howard, and their children Emmett and Marina Howard; his son, Joshua Strauss, his spouse, Shoshannah Strauss, and their children Connor, Brody, and Audrey Strauss; his stepdaughter, Amy Gurowitz and her spouse Andreas Lorenz, and their children Anja and Anika; and his stepson Eric Gurna and his spouse Elia Gurna, and their children Rosalie and Rafael.
If you wish to donate in Peter’s memory, please consider the following organizations: Women’s Cancer Resource Center:
https://www.wcrc.org/
Discovery Counseling Center of the San Ramon Valley https://www.discoveryctr.net/donate/
