Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, biochemist, educator, quilter
With great sorrow and love for a life fully lived, the family of longtime Claremont resident Barbara C. Dev announces her death, which took place October 8 while in the company of loved ones. Barbara fought a prolonged battle with ovarian cancer.
Chaucer scholar, longtime Claremonter, author, dedicated Catholic
Dolores Lucille Cullen, a longtime resident and familiar figure in Claremont, died at home October 11. She was 91 years old.
Dolores is survived by her sister, Audrey Abbot; children, Ted, Catherine and Marge, her companion and caregiver for the last three years; ten grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren.
Frances Florence Shorrock joined us on earth as a real lightweight, but left as a spiritual heavyweight—and along the way made the world a little bit better for us, her family shared.
She was born on July 30, 1930 in Seattle, Washington, and due to pneumonia weighed just two and-a-half pounds. Frances wasn’t expected to live 24 hours, but she persisted until July 26, 2019, just shy of her 89th birthday.
Great-great-grandmother, concert pianist, traveler, was 104 years old
Lucile Gates Carr died peacefully Wednesday, September 4 at Mt. San Antonio Gardens’ Oak Tree Lodge in Pomona. She was one month shy of her 105th birthday.
She was born October 5, 1914 in Marble Rock, Iowa, and suffered early from serious childhood asthma. When she was five years old, despite generations of successful farming, her parents, Tena and Glen Gates decided to leave their livelihood, families and farm, and move their two daughters, Estella and Lucy, to California in order to provide Lucy hope for a healthier life.
Catherine Rose Lombardo died at 12:44 p.m. September 18 at her Claremont home, surrounded by her family. She was 54 years old and fought a brave four-year battle against ovarian cancer.
Catherine was a musician from the age of 10, when she started playing the guitar. She earned a bachelor’s degree in classical vocal performance from the University of La Verne, and became a working musician, singing and recording for many years.
Betty Lou Anthony died August 9 at age 89.
She was born 90 years ago today, on Friday, September 13, 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression. Being a child of this era she learned frugality, perseverance, and a great deal of common sense.
Betty Lou was an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church and served for more than 30 years. She ministered to the native people of Alaska, accompanying the bishop of Alaska to remote Alaskan villages in bush planes, touching down on makeshift landing strips.
Brother, son, uncle, music lover
Alan E. Wray was born, October 11, 1961 in Pomona. He grew up in Claremont, where he was the fifth of five children born to Bob and Daisy Wray.
He attended Pomona’s El Camino School for developmentally disabled children until he was 21. Soon after he joined the Ontario-Pomona Association of Retarded Citizens (OPARC) workshop, where he worked on a landscaping crew that maintained small commercial lawns in the local area.
Beloved mother, grandmother, longtime Claremonter, devout Catholic, sports fan
Mary Frances Patterson Brehaut died peacefully at her Claremont home on Sunday, June 16 at the age of 95.
Mary was born December 19, 1923 in Los Angeles. The daughter of James and Loretto Patterson, she was one of five children. She lived in several cities in Southern California and attended schools in Ontario before the family settled in Pomona in 1940.
Former Claremont resident Jeanne Variell Stott Chippendale died August 25 at the age of 94.
Jeanne was born March 9, 1925 in Golden, Colorado to Helen Variell Cole and Charles Edwin Stott. Prior to her mother’s death from tuberculosis when she was four, she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents, Ina and Walter Scott Cole, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she would grow up.
Ellen Catherine Carlson died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Claremont on August 25. The daughter of the late James J. and Evelyn McQuaid, Ellen was born March 3, 1932, in Los Angeles. She grew up in Glendale, attended Bellarmine-Jefferson grade school and high school in Burbank, and graduated from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles in 1954.
Artist, pianist, special education paraprofessional. Robert Grigsby, Jr., age 71, died Sunday, August 18 at home. He grew up in Temple City, California, and was a 1966 graduate of Arroyo High School in neighboring El Monte.
Gwendolyn Lytle, who led a distinguished career as a vocal soloist and college professor at the University of California, Riverside and Pomona College, died August 22 in Claremont, after a courageous battle with liver cancer. She was 74.
Beloved sister, aunt, colleague, teacher and friend, her life was dedicated to family and education. Her musical performances included operatic roles, art songs and, her specialty, Negro spirituals.
Longtime resident of Claremont Katie Selke died at home July 12, surrounded by her family.
Born during the Depression in rural Texas, she lived through the howling windstorms of the Dust Bowl era. In her teen years she moved with her father and paternal grandmother to Lubbock, Texas.
Some of her fondest childhood memories were visiting her mother’s family on the farm and listening to her grandfather play the fiddle.
Reuel Peirsol Witherell, also known as “Rudy,” died at home in San Clemente on July 13.
Reuel was born April 6, 1928 to James and Cleda Peirsol of Pomona, where she grew up and in 1946 graduated from Pomona High School.
She married the love of her life, Frank Witherell Jr., on June 1, 1951, after graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in kindergarten primary education. On their first date, at Santa Barbara’s Miramar Hotel, a palm reader told them they were “born lovers.” This proved true in their 66 years of marriage.
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