Lost Coast Outpost

Meth, a Mother, and a Stillbirth: Imprisoned Mom Wants Her ‘Manslaughter’ Case Reopened

Nigel Duara / Monday, Feb. 21, 2022 @ 7:15 a.m. / Sacramento

Illustration by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

The 29-year-old woman was rushed to a Central Valley hospital on Dec. 30, 2017. Seven of her nine children had been born high on methamphetamine. This one, her 10th, was coming two weeks early.

Doctors detected no fetal heartbeat at 9:30 p.m. At 10:14 p.m., she tested positive for methamphetamine. Eight minutes later, Adora Perez of Hanford delivered a stillborn boy she named Hades, according to medical records shared with CalMatters by a member of Perez’s legal team.

“Affect appropriate for situation,” her medical chart noted. “Teary off and on.”

And then — on the morning of Jan. 1, 2018 — Perez was released from Adventist Medical Center in Hanford and arrested. Charged with murder, she eventually pleaded guilty to “manslaughter of a fetus” and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Perez has served nearly four years of her sentence, but this week, she returns to court. On Tuesday, a Kings County judge will weigh whether to reopen the case. Perez’s attorneys argue that she didn’t understand the crime to which she was pleading and received ineffective counsel from her trial and appellate attorneys.

Since her guilty plea, Perez’s story has drawn national attention for her rare plea to manslaughter of a fetus – a charge that doesn’t exist in California law. Abortion rights advocates believe her case has broad implications for abortion access in California, potentially opening the door to criminal prosecutions of people seeking to terminate pregnancies.

“With the possibility that Roe (v. Wade) might fall this year, letting this stand could increase these types of prosecutions,” said Samantha Lee, staff attorney at National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “Those cases happen everywhere in the country.

“I would just emphasize that I felt that shock when I heard these cases happened in California.”

A booking photo of Adora Perez from the Kings County Sheriff’s Office.

The four-year-old case also has pitted California’s attorney general against a long-time rural prosecutor.

In January, with Perez’s new court date looming in Kings County, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued an admonition to prosecutors statewide: Don’t file charges against mothers who miscarry or deliver a stillbirth.

“In California, we do not criminalize pregnancy loss, we do not criminalize miscarriages, we do not criminalize stillbirths,” Bonta, appointed last March, said in a press conference.

Bonta described his guidance as a “legal alert” to every county prosecutor.

Across the entire state in the last three decades, only one prosecutor has charged women who miscarry with murder: Kings County District Attorney Keith Fagundes.

Twenty-two months after he charged Perez, Fagundes filed a murder charge against 26-year-old Chelsea Becker of Hanford, who also tested positive for methamphetamine and delivered a stillbirth at the same hospital.

Becker was released in March after 16 months in jail. A Kings County judge dismissed the murder charge against her in May.

A booking photo of Chelsea Becker from the Kings County Sheriff’s Office.

Perez’s legal team takes that as a good sign — even knowing that they have challenged the conduct of the local prosecutors, defense attorneys, trial court and law enforcement system that closed quickly around Perez on the night of her delivery.

They say they’re also encouraged by a June 2021 decision by a state appellate court, which ruled that a trial court cannot accept a defendant’s plea that isn’t based in fact – exactly what Perez’s pro bono attorney, Mary McNamara, argues is happening in Kings County.

“You can’t just plead to something you couldn’t have done,” McNamara said.

The New Year’s arrest

In the hospital, according to her nursing chart, Perez and the father of her baby were distraught.

Perez “was emotional, tearful and mixed emotions,” a nurse wrote. “(Father of the baby) appeared to have been crying and was solemn.”

Perez was given numbers to call for substance abuse and counseling for postpartum depression. Both parents were handed a brochure about grief and loss called Angel Babies.

“Pt anticipates d/c home,” a nurse wrote in hospital shorthand: Patient anticipates discharge to home.

In his discharge summary, Dr. Thomas Enloe recommended that Perez be put on one to two weeks of “pelvic rest,” and recommended a follow-up appointment.

But the hospital had already put Perez’s legal case into motion. At 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2017, a nurse at the hospital called Child Protective Services. Police were at Perez’s bedside within three hours and ten minutes of her delivery.

“Adventist (Medical Center) was taking a very proactive role in contacting law enforcement,” McNamara said.

A doctor told a detective that the baby died of a placental abruption “due to extensive drug use by the mother,” according to Perez’s medical records, a statement which formed the foundation of the case against her.

“I would just emphasize that I felt that shock when I heard these cases happened in California.”
Samantha Lee, National Advocates for Pregnant Women

After she was charged, Perez was assigned an attorney who worked on a contract basis – Kings County, population 153,000, doesn’t have a public defender’s office. Perez argues now that the attorney failed to provide her with effective assistance, and led her to plead to a charge she didn’t understand.

She attempted to withdraw the plea, and argued her first attorney didn’t investigate the possibility that something other than methamphetamine might have led to the stillbirth. The judge denied her motion to withdraw the plea and, on June 15, 2018, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Perez appealed, but her appellate attorney filed what’s called a Wende brief, which tells the appeals court that the attorney found no issue upon which to appeal the case.

“It was basically putting up the white flag,” McNamara said.

The appellate court upheld the lower court’s ruling. The California Supreme Court declined to hear her petition for review.

Perez is now asking the Kings County Superior Court to reopen her case.

District attorney defiant

The tallest building in Hanford is the courthouse, four stories of neo-classical revival in the seat of Kings County. It’s nearly as old as the county itself, built just three years after the county’s incorporation in 1893.

The history of the state is inscribed in this rural county’s history: Bloodied by 1880s gun battles between railroad bulls and squatters, it was briefly made rich by a 1928 oil strike and provided the backdrop for the 1933 cotton pickers’ protest.

But there, Kings County’s history begins to diverge from California’s more recent prosperity.

The oil strike uncovered the Kettleman North Dome Oil Field, but the site is nearly exhausted. More people are leaving here than arriving – the county has lost more than 2,800 residents to out-migration in the last five years, according to the California Department of Finance. An estimated 2,000 births each year is the only thing keeping the county’s total population from shrinking.

A significant number of the adult population has voted for Fagundes.

In the last decade, Fagundes, the district attorney, has enjoyed a healthy mandate. After a 12-year career as a deputy district attorney in Tulare and Kings counties, he won the race for Kings County District Attorney in 2014 and 2018 with more than 68% of the vote, and he’s running for reelection this year.

When Bonta held his Jan. 6 press conference on the Becker and Perez cases, joined by abortion rights groups, a representative of Planned Parenthood decried “rogue district attorneys.”

Fagundes was listening.

“The AG of the state has no business being asked by political groups to give such statements,” Fagundes said.

“He took an oath to uphold the law and enforce the law, not interpret it for his own political ways.”

Fagundes’ neatly combed hair and ready smile belie a puncher’s mentality. Raised in a working class Catholic family of seven, Fagundes said abortion was never a topic his family discussed. His father, Richard Fagundes, has been on the Kings County Board of Supervisors since 2008.

“Through the college years and I still maintain today, I don’t have a uterus. I’m not going to make decisions for women in that regard,” Fagundes said. “I’m not going to tell them what’s best for their baby or themselves.”

A Democrat for much of his life, Fagundes switched to the Republican Party in 2014 as he prepared to run for office in this heavily Republican county, where 64% of registered voters wanted to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom in September.

But the decisions to charge the mothers, he said, came not from his own political leanings but from the opinions of the doctors who treated them and the pathologists who examined the fetuses.

“It’s like, look, under what circumstances can we do something?” Fagundes said. “These women are coming in and they are high on drugs.

“If they had come in beaten up and their fetuses were suffering from being beaten up, we would be charging the fathers. Why aren’t we charging folks for this?”

The staredown with state AGs

In nearly every instance, the California attorney general’s office supports the work of county district attorneys.

The Perez and Becker cases have reversed that dynamic.

Bonta and his predecessor, Xavier Becerra, now the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, have consistently called for the women to be freed.

“I think our position is very clear,” Bonta told CalMatters. Trial courts and attorneys “should know there’s no legal standing for such a charge,” he said.

Becerra said in a 2020 friend of the court brief that Fagundes misinterpreted the law and that a Kings County Superior Court judge was incorrect in deciding not to dismiss the charge against her.

More recently, Bonta filed a petition to the state Supreme Court, asking the justices to review Perez’s case. His office has also joined coalitions of state attorneys general opposing restrictions to abortion access in Texas, Mississippi, Arizona and Indiana.

Attorney General Rob Bonta, seen here on Jan. 6, 2020, as an assemblymember from Alameda. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters

California law regarding deaths of a fetus dates back to 1970. A man was convicted of murder for severely beating his estranged pregnant wife, who lost her baby. His conviction was overturned by the California Supreme Court, which ruled that a fetus is not a human being under the law.

In response, the Legislature added language to California’s murder statute: The killing of a fetus was punishable. But they added a condition: The murder statute didn’t apply if the act was “solicited, aided, abetted, or consented to by the mother of the fetus.”

Perez’s attorneys argue that her charges are therefore invalid because, under California law, a fetus cannot be the victim of a criminal act if the act is committed by the mother, or with her consent. They say the prosecutor erred in charging Perez, and the judge wrongfully allowed Perez to plead to something legally impossible. They contend the original attorney assigned to Perez failed her by allowing her to plead to a lesser charge, manslaughter of a fetus, that doesn’t exist in California law.

“Ms. Perez pled guilty (to manslaughter) because she had been led to believe that she could be convicted of murder, which was not true,” her attorneys wrote in a brief asking the state Supreme Court to review the case.

Medical experts introduced by Perez’s new legal team also have testified that there is no science supporting the idea that methamphetamine causes stillbirths.

Tuesday’s hearing will take up the question of whether Perez was denied her constitutional rights to due process by the actions and inaction of her original attorneys. If a judge agrees with Perez, her manslaughter plea will be vacated, and she could be released on bail. She would still face the original charge of murder.

Fagundes believes he’s done the best thing possible for the residents of his county, including Becker and Perez.

“This may be way out of line to say, but I credit our practice to (Becker’s) recovery if she stays recovered,” Fagundes said.

He argues that jail for Becker – and prison for Perez – provided them their longest periods of sobriety.

“How do you disagree that our practice worked for her in this moment? You can’t. No other practice helped her.”

The mothers today

Today, Perez is inmate number WG0595 at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Since she’s in prison for killing her infant, McNamara said she’s been assaulted.

“When you go into a prison with the moniker ‘baby killer,’ it’s similar to a man going to prison for pedophilia,” McNamara said. “You’re marked. She’s been beaten up, she’s been ostracized, she’s been in and out of the mental health ward.”

Drugs are readily available in the women’s prison, McNamara said, though she declined to say whether Perez, now 34, has maintained her sobriety during her incarceration.

“Prisons are filled with drugs, and to be able to survive in a situation like that as a sober individual is extraordinarily difficult,” McNamara said.

Becker, the other woman charged with manslaughter of a fetus, declined to comment through her attorney, Dan Arshack.

“(Becker) is a brilliant young woman with a troubled past and a bright future,” Arshack said. “Even though she didn’t know what the law was, in her heart she knew she shouldn’t have been criminalized.”

Arshack said Becker, now 27, is working full time and taking college courses. When she graduates, he said, she plans to apply to law school.

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CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

MONDAYS WITH MICHAELE: Bowl Out!

LoCO Staff / Monday, Feb. 21, 2022 @ 7 a.m. / Mondays With Michaele

Steee-rike! Your President of Positivity invites you to meet her at Harbor Lanes for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the North Coast annual fundraiser Bowl for Kids’ Sake taking place this year on March 4 and 5. Back with a ‘90s “Saved by the Bowl” theme, this event supports the work NCBBBS does for the betterment of local kids.

Head on over to the NCBBBS website for more info. Ciao Bella!

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Perhaps You’d Like to Explore Previous Mondays With Michaele For Some Reason!

(AUDIO) HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP: What Can We Expect With HSU’s Transition to Cal Poly Humboldt?

LoCO Staff / Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022 @ 9 a.m. / Humboldt Holding Up

Let’s practice. Say it with us: “Cal Poly Humboldt’s Founder’s Hall” | Photo: Jarad Petroske, via Wikimedia. Creative Commons license.

(AUDIO) Capps, Stewart and Fisher

If you catch yourself dropping a “Humboldt State” or “HSU” in the coming months, it’s OK. We’re all adjusting. But besides the big name change, how will the historic transition of our local university to Cal Poly Humboldt alter the lives of its students and the community around it?

On this week’s edition of Humboldt Holding Up, we speak with Cal Poly Humboldt officials — Provost Dr. Jenn Capps, Executive Director of Initiatives Connie Stewart and Vice President for Facilities Mike Fisher —about how California’s massive financial investment in their school and the shift to an emphasis on STEM fields might impact all of us in the coming years.

Click the audio player above to hear Capps, Stewart and Fisher chat with the Outpost’s Stephanie McGeary and Andrew Goff. And as always scroll through our past guests below to see which guests you may have missed.

PREVIOUS HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP GUESTS:

GROWING OLD UNGRACEFULLY: Aryans and White Supremacists

Barry Evans / Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022 @ 7 a.m. / Growing Old Ungracefully

The irony about the Aryan Nations, Neo-Nazis and other White Supremacist groups who trade on the term “Aryan” is that the original Aryans weren’t white, in the rather misleading sense that we use the word today. (I’m sandy-pink…how about you?) They were somewhat dark-skinned people who lived between 1500 and 500 years ago north of the Persian Gulf, in, roughly, what are today Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The first references to Aryans had no racial or tribal associations at all—an Aryan was one who spoke what linguists call Indo-Iranian and who embraced the ancient Sanskrit religious texts, the Vedas. In the Vedas, many folks referred to as “Aryans” have non-Indo-European names, i.e. there was no racial connotation. Rather, Aryan was a cultural term. Back then (and still today in India) the word means “noble” or “honorable.” By the way, Aryan and Iran, the country, are cognate, via Avestan (an old Iranian language) airyanam.

The whole “Aryan = white” meme was popularized in the 1850s with the toxic beliefs of French writer Arthur de Gobineau. His racist ideas were enthusiastically taken up in Britain by ultra-nationalists who espoused the notion that the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel are the ancestors of the British people, hence “British Israelism.” After peaking in popularity in the 1870s, British Israelism waned and probably would have died out. However, like many weird fads, after nearly fizzling out across the Atlantic, it was reignited over here as the “Christian Identity” movement, with the distasteful difference that, whereas the UK version was philo-Semitic, Christian Identity was militantly antisemitic.

Logo of the Nazi Ahnenerbe (“ancestral heritage”). | (Creative Commons license)

Back in Europe, one of the tenets of the National Socialist Party—Nazis—was that they were the descendants of a mythical master race of white Aryans. In this version of history, Aryans invaded Europe and interbred with the native people…except in Germany, where they maintained their pure blood line. Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful men in Germany and the main architect of the Holocaust, was obsessed with the idea of Aryan (and overlapping Nordic) racial superiority.

Under the auspices of the Ahnenerbe, expeditions were sent: to Western Asia, to show that the success of the Romans could be credited to their Aryan/Nordic blood; to the Himalaya, in an attempt to prove that ancient Aryans conquered much of Asia (and that the Buddha was Aryan); and to southwestern Sweden, to demonstrate that old petroglyphs used the script adopted by Aryan settlers when they first entered the region thousands of years ago. (Just to be clear: it’s all bullshit.)

Both to justify mass killing of Jews and other “inferior” people, and to prove his wacky and pernicious Aryan race ideas, Himmler formed the Ahnenerbe in 1935. This “research” group—the name means “ancestral heritage”—comprised scholars and scientists whose mission was to prove that “pure-blooded” Germans (excluding Jews, Slavs, Roma, and gays, of course) were descended from a superior ancient Aryan race.

Ahnenerbe member Dr. Bruno Berger, here in Sikkim in 1938, with one of nearly 400 Tibetans whose skull and facial features he measured while on an Ahnenerbe-sponsored expedition to Sikkim and Tibet, trying to establish an anthropological link between Tibetans and German “Aryans.” (Ernest Krause, Bundesarchiv, Creative Commons license)

In the course of researching this article, I hoped to find some true-life basis for Indiana Jones’ race against the Nazis in their quest to find the Ark of the Covenant, “a radio for speaking to God,” according to Indy’s rival archeologist. It was not to be. That particular MacGuffin was the brainchild of George Lucas’ pal Philip Kaufman, with whom Lucas discussed his proto-script for The Adventures of Indiana Smith in 1975. It took a few years, but when Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered in 1981, it did so to rave reviews (including mine, to anyone who would listen), and became the top-grossing film of the year, winning five Oscars.

Bottom line: There was no Aryan “race,” and the people who called themselves Aryans three thousand years ago were decidedly non-white.

LETTER FROM ISTANBUL: Some Time In Bebek

James Tressler / Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022 @ 7 a.m. / Letter From Istanbul

Ortakoy | Photo: Dietmar Giljohann, via Wikimedia. Creative Commons license.

With classes on winter break, I’ve had a lot of time at home, time to spend with Ozge and Leo. The other day we decided to go to Ortakoy for a change of scene. We were tired of the usual places. With a blessed false spring in the air, the ferryride from the Asian side was pleasant, the morning energized by the sound of the motor churning out froths of white sea foam at the back of the boat.

Ortakoy is on the European side, up near the 15 July Bridge (named so to mark the day of the failed coup attempt in 2016). With its famous mosque looking out over the waterfront, in the shadow of the bridge, you can’t miss it.

“But what are we going to do with Leo in Ortakoy?” my wife asked, not unreasonably. Neither of us had been there in years, but were desperate for something different.

As we disembarked, we passed the mosque with its tall minarets silhouetted by the bright morning sun, and headed over to the nearby market stalls. Our eager eyes were greeted with the disheartening brightness of trinkets, jewelry, bling, bling, bling.

“It’s all so Arabic now,” Ozge observed. “Even the air smells like Arabic fragrances.”

I recalled, not long after my arrival in the city back in 2010, watching a CNN feature story on Elif Safak’s Istanbul. The celebrated Turkish author took viewers on a tour through the streets of this same neighborhood. “Ortakoy is one of my favorite neighborhoods,” she told the reporter. “It has always been home to many artists.”

Inspired by that story, I had spent a languid, rainy Saturday there, plunked down in a cushy chair at a cozy pub, sipping pints of Efes and enjoying the sulky, boheme vibe. I read a book that I’d bought at a second-hand bookseller down near the waterfront. Looking around now, all those things — the cushy chairs, the sulky boheme vibe, even the second-hand bookseller, appeared to be gone.

“All the artists live in Kadikoy now,” my wife remarked, after listening to my Elif Safak story. Indeed, sadly, Ortakoy — what we could see anyway — appeared to have become just another tourist trap for the tourists. “Well, I guess boheme doesn’t pay the bills, the Arabs do,” I said. We both thought about the ongoing economic woes, the inflation, that has gripped the country over the past months.

After passing more of the bling sellers, and a calvacade of kumpir booths, we pushed Leo (in the stroller, looking all about) out to the main road, under the bridge and on to the coastal road that winds north along the Bosphorus all the way up to the Black Sea. The whole area, green hillsides falling into the pleasant waters of the strait, is elegant and more posh the further north you go. Splendid 19th Century style houses, white and redwood-colored brown, stand proudly from the hills and look out onto the waterfront.

Fortunately, the weather was fine, and other people were out walking their dogs, or jogging, or just touristing like us. We stopped at a park and let Leo explore the big and little slides, the twisty ones and the straight, until he was tired and let us get him back in the stroller.

Further on, we passed high-end restaurants and hotels, including the Mandarin Oriental-Istanbul (is that like the Chinese version of the Hilton?), as well as the gold facade of the prestigious Galatasaray University, and later a yacht club that sported gleaming, colossal vessels the size of small buildings. With the winter season, most of the yachts sat parked, their bright colors shimmering in the waters, red, green, purple and gold.

The fishermen were out as always, casting their long poles out carefully to avoid the people passing along the broad sidewalks. No matter the weather, the economy or season, the fishermen could always been found at all the various points along the Bosphorus, their presence friendly and reassuring. Some of them wore Covid masks draped down around their necks as they fished, while others carried on maskless, a great air of busyness and robust, grizzled health about them. We felt good having the fishermen there; they kept our city close and recognizable.

Our son Leo took in all these and other things, like the great ships passing by north and south, the ducks swimming just offshore, the cars passing in the street. He leaned forward in the stroller, urging us forward as if in command of a dogsled (we parents being the dogs, of course).

We finally arrived at Bebek, an upscale neighborhood that is known for its beautiful houses and European atmosphere. It is comfortably chic, colorful but not ostentatious; the people obviously moneyed but not unapproachable. Bebek has the feeling of relaxed wealth, with some of the trees still appearing green even when stripped of their leaves from the winter, and the well-dressed, fashionable people sitting at the outdoor cafes sipping wine or tea or coffee behind tinted shades, speaking in soft, low voices.

We had stopped at another park earlier to let Leo make use of the slides, and to tire him out. It worked. By the time we arrived in Bebek, he was asleep in the stroller. My wife covered him in an old coat to keep the bright sun away from his face and the seaside chill at bay.

We passed many places, feeling a bit self-conscious (poor), before finally setting on a cafe that looked out at the street, but raised a bit so that you could get a good view of the seaside. Two men wearing dark suits nodded and gestured towards an available table. Nearby mostly women were sitting in twos and threes, looking chic over their glasses of red wine.

The menu was formidable to say the least. My wife settled on a glass of the least expensive white wine, while I, failing to see beer on the florid menu, worked up the nerve to ask the waiter if they had it.

“Yes, yes,” the waiter said, when I finally gave our order. “Heineken? Bomonti? Efes?” Only bottled beer was available, so I had him bring me the Bomonti, which he served with an ice cold glass. I let him keep the glass,and he obligingly popped open the bottle and set it on the glass table.

While Leo slept, Ozge and I had our drinks and just watched the people and cars pass, and looked out at the sea. It isn’t something we get to do so often anymore, between work and Leo, to just have a drink and sit outside somewhere like we used to, to look out at beautiful houses and places that we could never afford, but most of all to just be by ourselves for a while. In another week the new term will start at the university, and next month Ozge’s maternity leave will end which means back to work for her too. And Leo will start going to a pre-school at least for a few hours a day. So lots of things will change as they always seem to do, especially nowadays. I finished the Bomonti and asked Ozge if she wanted more wine but she was fine, checking her phone and on Leo from time to time. He was sleeping peacefully, worn out from all the sliding and climbing and seeing new things.

I knew how he felt. It is tiring to see new things, the senses take in so much at one time. But it was good for him.

“Well, we didn’t spend much time in Ortakoy, did we?” I asked, as the waiter set another beer down. My wife shook her head. “I told you there isn’t much to do there,” she said.

We both just sat and looked out at the people and at the Bosphorus.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher in Istanbul, or somewhere.

OBITUARY: Andy Schueler, 1926-2022

LoCO Staff / Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022 @ 6:45 a.m. / Obits

Andy Schueler

January 4, 1926 to February 11, 2022

Andrew “Andy” Henry Schueler was born in Fortuna on Jan. 4, 1926, on Schueler Lane, located behind Rohner Park. He attended Fortuna High, a member of the class of 1945, but he missed his graduation as he was drafted during World War II, serving in Korea.

Andy met the love of his life, Lorraine, at the Fortuna Skating Rink and they would go on to be married for 71 years.

Andy was in the first graduating class of the College of the Redwoods. He enjoyed his career as a head saw filer at various mills throughout Humboldt County. He was remembered by many as “Handy Andy,” as there was nothing he could not fix or repair. He loved helping others.

Andy enjoyed a long retirement, filled with his hobbies, woodworking, playing games and pool with family and friends, and traveling. His daughters Joyce, Doris, Mary and Penny will always be thankful for the example he set with his strong work ethic, positive attitude, and beautiful smile. Andy was a Christian, loved singing “Amazing Grace,” and attended the Seventh Day Adventist church in Fortuna, and Fields Landing Calvary Community Church.

Fun Facts about Andy at 96 years of age:

He loved riding his scooter around Fortuna with Lorraine and his dog Sweet Pea on his lap.
He was still mowing his yard himself.
He enjoyed visiting the Fortuna Library, and read up to a book a day.
He was happy and smiling all the time.

He is greatly missed by his family: Loving wife Lorraine, sister Evelyn Ogle, son in law Randy Couch, daughters Doris (Dennis) Miller, Mary Schueler (Kevin Waters), Penny (Jens) Klinger, grandsons Ryan & Travis Osborn, Andrew, Kurt, Thomas & Karl Klinger and great grandchildren and special friends Steve & Cindy Gubanez, Dick & Deborah Ecker. The family would like to extend their gratitude and thanks, to Rebecca Morris and staff from the Veterans Center in Eureka for their loving care of Andy throughout the years.

In Lieu of flowers, Andy would want all of us to share our smile with others each and every day. Private arrangements are being made.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Andy Schueler’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

OBITUARY: Leta Wilson, 1926-2022

LoCO Staff / Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022 @ 6:45 a.m. / Obits

Leta Mae Dunwoody Wilson was born Sept. 5, 1926 in Shelbina, Missouri. She was the eighth of twelve children born to Alva Lester Dunwoody and Corna Francis Ross Dunwoody. She grew up on the farm surrounded by love and happiness.

Leta’s education began at No. 6 school, a one room school, where she graduated at the top of her eighth grade class. She attended Madison High School which was quite a distance from the farm so she and her older siblings shared an apartment in Madison and went home to the farm on weekends. When she graduated from high school, World War II was raging and there was a shortage of teachers. She attended Kirksville Teachers College (now Truman University) and obtained an emergency teaching credential. She returned to her home and became the teacher at No. 6 school where she was not only the teacher but the custodian, school secretary, and anything else that needed to be done.

When the war ended Leta decided to move west to California to be with her sister, Fern, who was working as a telephone operator in Eureka. Soon after she arrived she found work as the secretary for the editor of the local newspaper, The Humboldt Times.

Leta met Ben Wilson at a dance in 1945. Ben enjoyed teaching Leta about the North Coast which had been his lifelong home. There are lots of amusing stories about this Missouri girl learning to fish for salmon. They married on June 21, 1947. Together they raised four children: Jennifer, Carolyn, Jeff, and Chris. When her children were all old enough to care for themselves after school she decided to go back to work. She polished her skills and was hired as a traffic clerk in the Arcata Justice Court. Always well organized and detail-oriented, she enjoyed her co-workers and the interaction with members of the legal community who had business in the Arcata Justice court. After more than 30 years, she retired as the Clerk of the Arcata Municipal Court.

In retirement, Leta travelled with Ben to many parts of the United States and Canada. She especially loved to visit her family in Missouri.

Leta was a generous quilter who shared her quilts with family and friends and made a whole new circle of friends in the quilting community. She also was a longtime volunteer with the Northern California Community Blood Bank.

Leta took great pride in her home and maintained her yard and garden like a park. Her roses were always the highlight of her garden and there was never a weed in her yard. She loved her pets. She and her Jack Russell terrier, Molly, were often seen walking in the area around Sequoia Park or Henderson Center. She was a cancer survivor having been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. She underwent surgery and was able, within weeks, to resume her vigorous daily walks. Until a stroke limited her activities in October of 2019, Leta and Molly would walk at a brisk pace for two miles or more every day. But nothing was more fun for her than being with her grandchildren and having her family nearby. She shared with them her strength, wisdom, humor, love and appreciation of all the gifts with which God blessed her. She was a wonderful Mother but even better as a Grandma.

Leta was preceded in death by her husband Ben Wilson in 1992, parents, Alva and Corna Dunwoody, sisters Reva M. Neale, M. Alice Willingham, Permelia F. ”Melia” Neale, Fern E. Kauder, brothers Ross B. Dunwoody, Grover C. Dunwoody, C. Ray Dunwoody, Rex J. Dunwoody, and L. Fred Dunwoody.

Leta is survived by her sisters Bonnie J. Dunwoody and Dollie F. Dunwoody of Moberly, Missouri and her children Jennifer Chapman, Carolyn Crnich (William), Jeffrey Wilson (Chieko), and Christopher Wilson (Linda), her beloved grandchildren, Abigail Crnich (Craig Whitten), Sarah Chapman Weltsch (Jonathan), Justin Zabel (Janna), Nickolas Wilson (Toni), Bryan Wilson (Celina), and Taylor Wilson (Jordan). She is also survived by ten great grandchildren and a huge number of nieces and nephews.

Leta’s family wishes to express special thanks to those who have cared for her in recent months, particularly Maureen Yost, Judy Taylor and Janet Arnold. Their loving care was such a comfort to Leta and her family.

As per her wishes, friends and family are invited to gather for graveside services when her cremains are set to rest with her husband’s on February 22, 2022 at 11 a.m. at Ocean View Cemetery in Eureka.

For those wishing to make a memorial contribution to charity, we would suggest the Northern California Community Blood Bank, 2524 Harrison Ave., Eureka CA 95501 or the Susan G. Koman Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, 13770 Noel Rd., Suite 801889, Dallas TX 75380 or the charity of your choice.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Leta Wilson’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.