No. 46, May 2005

Obituaries

Irene McClenden
The heart of Antonia Manor

As much as anyone ever has, the diminutive Irene McClenden defined the spirit of the Antonia Manor with her gentle, loving ways, said a dozen of her friends who gathered at the hotel on March 22 to remember her.

Mrs. McClenden, a striking Japanese American from Hawaii, was the SRO’s desk clerk in the early 1980s, the greeting face for the hotel. She made friends quickly and loved birds, often feeding pigeons with birdseed she kept in her pockets.  

The 27-year resident of the hotel died of stomach cancer at Laguna Honda Hospice where she had been transferred after two weeks at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. She was 79.

“We go back to 1981 when she was a desk clerk,” TL activist David Villa-Lobos and longtime friend, told the gathering. “She was like a mother to me and gave me advice. I visited her an hour every week before she went away. She was in a lot of pain but didn’t complain. I loved her very much.”

Over the years, he said, Mrs. McClenden always put a card under his door on his birthday and at Christmas. “It had $20 in it,” he said. “I always tried to refuse it and she wouldn’t hear of it.” 

Off the lobby, in the middle of a tidy room where the memorial was held, a floral spray of white roses, lilies and carnations were on a table under a luminous skylight that defied the rain and gray outdoors. 

“She got me sheets, and we became really good friends,” said Russell Christophel, who met her in 1984 when he moved in. “She took me into her room many times to see her birds. She had little white finches in a huge cage, once six of them, and she incubated eight babies.”

Christophel visited her at the hospital and said she was happy when her son, Ron Bartelo, came from Seattle to see her. “Then she said she was ready to go,” he said. “But she didn’t want people to be sad about it.”

The group sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and bid her “Aloha, Irene.” Her ashes were flown to Hawaii.

Photo courtesy of David Villa-Lobos

— Tom Carter

Charles Mobley
Former probation officer

Charles Mobley packed a lot of living into his 72 years, made many friends along the way and had a fruitful career. He had lived at the Pacific Bay Inn only five months when he died March 5.

“He was my next-door neighbor,” said resident Jerome Peters. “I like to play music in my room, and after he moved in, I asked if it was too loud. He said, ‘Play it as loud as you want.’ We forged a bond, even in that short time. He was a very good man. I know he’s going to be in good shape in the other world.”

The March 14 memorial honored both Mr. Mobley and fellow resident Timothy Poulos, who died the same day. As the memorial began, Charles Jones, a longtime friend of Mr. Mobley’s, arrived bearing huge foil-covered platters of food to feed the 15 mourners.

“He was my good friend for 35 years, and many people thought I was Chuck’s probation officer,” said Jones, who was wearing a hat with an S.F. Probation Office insignia and a badge. “Actually, he was my supervisor when we worked together at the California State Youth Authority in San Francisco and Sacramento.”

Mr. Mobley grew up in Miami, the youngest of four siblings. He was a National Honor Society member, got honorably discharged from the Air Force, and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Sacramento State University. He was a state parole agent in San Francisco until his retirement in 1983.

Jones told the mourners that last year Mr. Mobley was inducted into his Miami high school’s Hall of Fame.

“He was a special person,” Jones said, “the kind of friend who took me in for eight months after my wife and I separated. I think the system made him bitter, but that was later. I know he’s looking around here and asking, ‘Why’d you bring all this food?’ “

The spread included roast chicken, rice, green beans, green salad and lemon bars for dessert. Also special was a smaller dish, prepared by one of Mr. Mobley’s fellow tenants, who said his name is Missionary Yem. He’d sauteed the red, fragrant onions in wine in a rice cooker in his room, he said proudly.

“Charles was such a quiet person, but look at his picture,” Yem said, pointing to a photo of Mr. Mobley. “He looks so youthful and shows such energy.”

Mr. Mobley is survived by a sister in Miami and a brother who lives at the Veterans Hospital nursing home in San Francisco.

Photo courtesy of Mr. Mobley's family

— Marjorie Beggs

Timothy Poulos
Runnerup for Mr. Hollywood

Timothy Poulos had lived at the Pacific Bay Inn for almost four years. He died in his room March 5 at the age of 58. A joint memorial was held March 14 for Mr. Poulos and fellow tenant Charles Mobley.

“Timothy was very ill at the end,” recalled Jane Hannigan, who moved into the hotel about the same time as Mr. Poulos. “We’d talk in his room, and the goodness of him impressed me, and his education. He didn’t take out his misery on others. I’m so sorry he had to suffer.”

Missionary Yem remembered him for the way he extended himself to others. “He taught me to do Italian cooking,” Yem said, “and he also knew holistic healing that helped me eliminate some pain from my legs. When I think of him, there’s still happiness inside my mind, in my heart.”

Adam Grossman, a friend of many years, found Mr. Poulos in his room shortly after he died. Grossman came to the memorial but, overcome with grief, left before it started. He called The Extra later to talk about how he was feeling.

“I wish I’d done more to be his friend — now it’s too late,” Grossman said. “I’m having a hard time with this. I guess he just wanted to go, and wanted to for a while. Once when he tried to commit suicide, he resisted going with the paramedics when they came. He was a terrible alcoholic and his smoking may have killed him.”

The S.F. medical examiner determined that Mr. Poulos had died of complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Grossman cheered up slightly as he talked about his friend’s life: “Tim was just so nice, so sweet. He came from a big Greek family, grew up in Oak Park, Ill., lived for a while in Hollywood — he was a runnerup for Mr. Hollywood — and was a United Airlines steward for a summer. He and his identical twin brother, Mark, were the original male Doublemint gum twins. [The ad campaign’s first twins were women, in 1959.]”

Photo courtesy of Adam Grossman

— Marjorie Beggs

Rose Ridolfi
Open to the truth

Rose Ridolfi, who died March 8, generated strong emotions in everyone who knew her, and she had acquaintances throughout the Tenderloin.

“I knew her for two decades,” said the Rev. Glenda Hope, who officiated at Ms. Ridolfi’s March 15 memorial at the Franciscan Hotel. “I have to say, I wasn’t surprised at her passing, but I thought she’d always be around. She was like the little girl who had a curl — when she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid.

“We can talk about Rose like that here,” Hope added. “People tell the truth at Tenderloin memorials, that we’re all a mix of good and bad.”

The rest of the memorial was one story after another about Ms. Ridolfi, who had been relocated a year and a half ago to the Franciscan from the West Hotel, and previously had lived at the Ambassador.

“Oh, she liked to talk, but she always apologized for talking so much,” recalled Victoria Barros, the Franciscan’s assistant manager. “You have to think that she was very lonely.”

“I respected her courage and how she lived with AIDS,” said a fellow tenant from the Franciscan who stopped to say a few words, then left.

“When I first met her, I couldn’t stand her,” said Leo Chosa, an Ambassador resident. “She was so high-maintenance. She always spoke to me and I may have growled, but she always came back. I came to accept her. She was like an era unto herself. Things won’t be the same without her.”

Dan O’Connor, St. Anthony’s community liaison, said he would always remember Ms. Ridolfi as a “wise woman” he respected because she’d listen to the truth and not let it hurt her feelings, even if he told her something brutally honest.

Hope agreed: “She’d come into the chaplaincy at the Ambassador talking in a stream, and I’d just shudder. Once she looked at me and said, ‘You don’t like me.’ It gave me the chance to tell her the truth. I said, ‘We just don’t know what to expect from you.’ “

Ms. Ridolfi was quite disabled toward the end of her life. Her former visiting nurse, Sunny Lovel, noted that going from being active to being in a wheelchair can shut a person in and create anger that’s directed at everyone. “Still,” Lovel said, “a couple of days with her was all I could take.”

Mary Ann Finch recalled how Ms. Ridolfi wanted to go visit her daughter, but delayed because she felt she looked so bad. Finch, who operates the Care Through Touch Institute, which give fully-clothed and seated massages to the homeless and others living on the margins, was approached to give Ms. Ridolfi an “extreme makeover,” with shower, manicure, haircut.

“I kept putting it off,” Finch said ruefully.

Ms. Ridolfi’s age was unknown. She is survived by a daughter and grandchildren who live near Sacramento and two sisters in Southern California.

— Marjorie Beggs

Preston Horowitz
Popular cook at Iroquois

“We have a saying in Hebrew, ‘May his memory be a blessing,’ ” said Rabbi Natan Fenner, who conducted a memorial for Preston Horowitz, a retired cook who made life a little brighter for his friends in the Iroquois hotel.

The cheerful Mr. Horowitz insisted on sharing the fruits of his talents, an offering that one social worker said made him a community builder.

“He’d maybe have to scrounge around for change to buy a pepper but then he’d invite everyone to enjoy what he made,” said Bruce Kucejko, an Iroquois resident who knew him 2 1/2 years. “And he had a humorous way of looking at things. We’ll all miss him.”

“Yes, I know some people gained weight because of him,” said another man among the dozen friends who attended the memorial. “For a while he was charging $5, but he had to stop that.”

Mr. Horowitz died of a heart attack in his sleep March 18. He was 63. His companion of 12 years, Beverly Galaz, said he had worked as a chef in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They lived at the Iroquois on O’Farrell nearly eight years.

Rabbi Fenner, from the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, read the charming poem, “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver, and sang two prayers in Hebrew.

Photo courtesy of  Iroquois Hotel

— Tom Carter

Luis M. Urena
‘A remarkable guy’           

The table at the front of the Alexander Residence’s community room held three huge bunches of spring flowers, two candles and four cards filled with prayers and remembrances for Luis Urena, who died April 10.

“By this turnout, Luis must have been much loved,” said the Rev. Glenda Hope, surveying the 30-plus people of all ages and ethnicities assembled for the April 19 memorial.

Mr. Urena moved to San Francisco from Juarez, Mexico, in 1978. He was 48 years old when he died at UCSF after a long battle with AIDS, according to a longtime friend.

“Luis was a hard worker who wanted to make things better for everyone,” said Chris Lapoure, Mr. Urena’s friend of 26 years. “He bought a house for his mother in Juarez, he was on the TNDC board [as a tenant rep], he had a job at Beronio Lumber until he got ill 12 years ago, and he loved to build things.”

Mr. Urena’s friends and neighbors at the Alexander, where he had lived for six years, remembered him as kind and friendly with a great sense of humor.

“He had the purest Spanish heart,” said one of the mourners.

“We were all such good friends,” added Donna Lisa Stewart, who brought her tiny dog, Spike, to the memorial.

Several recalled Mr. Urena’s love for his dog, Blanco, that died last year.

“I remember him walking around the neighborhood with Blanco,” said Kelly Cullen, TNDC executive director, “and I have memories of him on the board. He touched everyone with his concern. The rehab at the Alexander was hard, but he dealt with it, even though he was ill — he kept serving, despite the fact that he was dying. It’s hard to let go of someone like Luis. He was a remarkable guy — very self-effacing.”

Alexander Tenants Association board member Michael Nulty said he became friends with Mr. Urena when he asked to get involved with the tenants’ group.

“Luis was very generous with his time,” Nulty said. “He became an officer of the tenants’ association. Later, he asked me if I thought he should join the TNDC board. I told him to do it and see if he could help improve things for tenants.”  

Nulty announced that that afternoon, the Board of Supervisors was closing its meeting in memory of Mr. Urena.

He is survived by his sister and a sister and brother in New Mexico.

At the memorial’s end, the tables of the community room were piled high with bags of food, mostly frozen entrees and side dishes, a donation from S.F. Rescue Mission. The food, a precious commodity, was gone in just a few minutes.

Photo courtesy of  Michael Nulty

— Marjorie Beggs

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