Meet Our Residents
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Uniquely colorful iris grace the entrance to their Villa, and a family heirloom jigsaw puzzle is being assembled on the dining room table – just two of Bob and Ginger Detterman's many interests. But stories of careers in nuclear energy, of Arabian horses, and of a passion for volunteering dominate a conversation with this couple.
As a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Bob attended the Oak Ridge (Tennessee) School of Reactor Technology...
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The Noteworthy Neighbors article last month, featuring six medical doctors who are UVTO residents, promised to acknowledge any who might have been missed. Howard Wilson, recently the speaker at a Men's Club Breakfast, responded with this gracious note:
We're relatively new here and haven't been included in the Residents' Book, but I'd like to have my wife included in the physicians' list.
Miriam G. Wilson, M.D., was born in Yakima, Washington. She attended the University of Washington where she earned her BS and MS degrees and was awarded the President's Medal. She was accepted at the University of California Medical...
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- By Peggy Perry -
Yes, there be dragons! At his front door, pictured on his walls, perched around his home, along with the collections and artifacts which reveal the multifaceted interests of Tom Simondi. You may know him as the man who wears red suspenders, the unique ones that attach on the sides of his slacks, so there’s no center back clasp to scratch the furniture. That’s just one example of his distinctive and thoughtful creativity.
Another of Tom's identifying "trade marks" is his ever-present camera. When this year’s ducklings appeared, several residents called to alert him....
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- By Peggy Perry -
Dr. Goldware
Dr. Hillis
Dr. Lang
Dr. Scott
Dr. Solomon
Dr. Wilcox
Is there a doctor in the house? In University Village? Research and resident opinions agree that yes, there are six retired medical doctors living in our community. (If we missed any, we apologize and will readily acknowledge others we haven’t discovered.)
These six men are geographically scattered around our campus. Two live in the Garden Terraces with their wives: Jon and Judy Hillis are in Evergreen, while Dave and Ronnie Solomon call Sycamore home. Dan Lang is a Creekview, second floor, neighbor of Ross and Rose Goldware....
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- By Peggy Perry -
How very neat! Hal Eberle claims that his life, mostly spent with Mary, falls into four 21-year segments: schools, the Air Force, Hughes and retirement. As youngsters, Hal and Mary met in the violin section of their junior high orchestra in New Albany, Indiana. In senior high, they walked to school together and were once called to face the principal after holding hands in the hallway. Oh, and Mary’s father was the principal!
Graduating in wartime 1942, Hal enlisted in the Army and started classes at Indiana University, while Mary worked. She had...
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- By Peggy Perry -
In recent weeks, you may have spotted her anywhere, everywhere. Quietly arranging snow village tables, putting up birthday party décor, delivering home made cookies to the Maintenance Department, sorting envelopes for Employee Appreciation Fund distribution, phoning residents to confirm excursion participation, recruiting volunteers for the Activities Desk – even sorting pictures taken at three years of Family Day celebrations. She has been indispensable as the new Activities Director settled in and received Mary’s supportive help.
Mary Norris says, “I do it because I enjoy it. I enjoy working with people, looking after their...
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- By Peggy Perry -
In this season of giving, it seems appropriate to feature a couple who have given themselves quietly, but graciously and generously, to help make life pleasant for their UVTO neighbors.
Both Bill and Wini Nichols were born in Whittier, California, where they grew up in families which had been long-time friends at their church. Bill’s WW II Air Corps service in radio repair took him from Atlantic City to Fresno and Delano on the west coast, through the Panama Canal to Melbourne, from Bombay to Calcutta and over the hump to China, through the...
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- By Peggy Perry -
Her name is an instant clue to Carmen Friedman's multi-faceted heritage, and multi-cultural is a bit of an understatement when Carmen describes her family origins. Her four grandparents came from four countries on three continents: Cuba, Hungary, Germany and South Africa. She didn't know all of them, but lovely portraits commemorate some of them in her Lakeview home.
Her father, of Cuban ancestry but Spanish by nationality, was a businessman, an importer of raw cocoa beans in the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. There Carmen attended school until 1943. By then her father was the Spanish Consul in...
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- By Peggy Perry -
The walls of their Villa home tell their story – displaying mementos of Mel Smokler’s career, Olga’s oil paintings and lovely views of her home city where they met.
Mel grew up in a Boston suburb and was in the Army from 1942 to 1946, serving in Africa and Italy. In Florence at the end of the war he met Olga at a Red Cross center. An office colleague had invited her to the Center one day to help teach American soldiers to dance. ("He couldn’t dance a step," she laughs.) Culturally, he could not visit...
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- By Peggy Perry -
If you've been at UVTO for a while, you certainly already know this couple — energetic Dev Leahy and always-smiling Midge, residents of UVTO for three years this month. The continental breakfast bunch is familiar with Dev stirring flaxseed into his cottage cheese and his purposeful stride on his early morning walks around the campus. You may even be one of the dozens of incoming residents welcomed with a Trader Joe's bag of goodies delivered by the Leahys, who were enthusiastic original members of the Hospitality Committee.
Dev grew up in Evanston; when he graduated from...
- By Sally Allen -
Born in Sangar, CA, Ruthie moved to Fresno to her grandparents home during the Depression, where her father and uncle had just lost the five fruit farms they had owned. She grew up playing football with the neighborhood boys. Ruth’s father died when she was thirteen years old, so her mother supported the family as a nurse. Her sister became a published poet. Ruthie saw her mother as Florence Nightingale and decided to be a Naval Cadet Nurse. She attended Fresno State College, and then trained at St. Vincent’s Hospital in LA. She hurt her...
- By Jennifer McGhee -
When I asked Valerie if I could interview her as our Noteworthy Neighbor, she responded, "But I’m just an ordinary person - a retired nurse!" She went on to tell me about one of her first dinners at UVTO. The hostess sat her with a group of three other women and they soon discovered that all four were retired nurses! For those of us who have the pleasure of knowing Valerie, we enjoy her smile, positive energy and her obvious "love of people."
Valerie was born in Washington DC and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland....
- By Jennifer McGhee, Activities Department -
Dr. Bob Scott celebrated his 95th birthday on May 15 and a celebration it was! Joined by his friends in the Westlake Dining Room, Dr. Bob enjoyed being "served like it was Buckingham Palace!" His friends are his favorite thing about living at UVTO, and he has made a lot of them since moving here nearly 3 years ago!
Born in Crystal, North Dakota, a town of 125 people near the Canadian border, Dr. Bob grew up in the Depression. Dr. Bob's father, a general practitioner, lost all of his money in the town's...
- By Peggy Perry -
Imagine the thrill of a late-teen-aged girl from Ohio heading west to visit an aunt and cousins who lived in California. And the startling surprise of having all train travel, including her homeward bound trip, canceled when World War II broke out and railroads served only the military. She stayed in California, and it turned out to be not only exciting, but life-changing for Marty Obbink.
Marty’s cousin was a couple of years older and provided a social whirl with his friends - she loved it. In time, she met and married Everett Rose, an Air...
- by Peggy Perry -
s philosophy of life is expansive - if you want to do it, just figure out a way. Jennifer's creative talents in music and writing complement Craig's entrepreneurial and artistic gifts. Their Villa home certainly reflects their myriad interests.
Born in England, raised in Canada, a resident of Los Angeles since the '50s, Jennifer earned a BA from UCLA in English (minor in music). At Western Publishing Company in Beverly Hills and as a free lance writer she has produced advertising copy, political speeches, newspaper articles, Yogi Bear stories, educational text on subjects from space programs...
On her eighteenth birthday, Clara Knopfler‘s mother made her a magnificent cake - three slices of hoarded bread coated with marmalade. The month was January, 1945, and the place was East Prussia. They had survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration camp.
Clara was born in Transylvania and lived a comfortable, village life. Her father was a shoe manufacturer, and Clara dreamed of becoming a teacher. Life was pleasant until 1940 when Transylvania was occupied by Hungarians, Hitler‘s first allies in World War II. During her sophomore year in high school, her family was taken to Auschwitz. Her 19-year old brother was shot...
- By Peggy Perry -
On February 11 nine healthcare professionals will be honored by the Ventura County Medical Resource Foundation – one will be Lois Friss, a Villa resident. Lois and Jerry were actually the first full-time Villa residents of University Village, moving in on July 2, 2007. But let's go back a few years...
When they met in the dining hall at Syracuse University, both Lois and Jerry were in school as recipients of New York State Scholarships. Their first date was dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and they still have the sugar cube wrapper from that significant meal....
- By Peggy Perry -
Snow, snow, snow! Mary Ellen had her fill of it, growing up near Detroit, Michigan. On visiting southern California as a youngster, she announced to her mother that this is where she intended to live (no snow!), and, a few years later, she headed for a job with Beckman Instruments in Pasadena. There, one autumn weekend, she was invited to a swimming pool party – which she attended with the provision that transportation home would be provided.
Chuck Kircher had been the Navy for twelve years, and was a 1st Class Petty Officer with a combat...
- By Peggy Perry -
In this season of giving, it seems appropriate to feature a couple who has given graciously and generously of themselves for more than two years here, making life more pleasant for their UVTO neighbors. Gene and Ann Motte have certainly done that since they moved into their villa in July, 2007.
A private person resisting attention to her activities, Ann is enthusiastic about the Hospitality Committee. One of the original members in February, 2008, she co-chaired the committee last year and continues to collect, package and distribute information for new UVTO residents. A welcome surprise was...
- By Peggy Perry -
Has anyone living at University Village not used a Mastercard? Did you know that a fellow resident was on the team that developed that icon of the credit industry? Bill Michael, then working for the United Bank of California, helped represent the bank as UCB, Bank of California, Crocker and Wells Fargo teamed together in 1968 to offer an alternative to Bank of America’s then brand new, innovative VISA credit card.
Bill begins relating his life story by referring to himself as a former B 24 Liberator Bomber pilot who flew thirty WW II combat missions...
Without a long-ago classroom encounter, Ida and John O'Donoghue could not have hosted their recent gala celebration of several milestones, including their 34th wedding anniversary and Ida's retirement. But that's getting ahead of the story.
John, the seventh of thirteen children, was born in 1929 into a fieldstone home with two staircases, central heating, refrigerator and telephone, a pony and maids and a touring car. Seven years later, his depression-stressed parents relocated his six older siblings with family members; John, at age seven, became the "oldest" of seven brothers and sisters. In a small, one-bedroom house, he was responsible for bringing...
"Let’s Dance," the theme for this month’s Village View Newsletter, was personified by Gene and Joyce Smith whirling around the dance floor while the Bugaboo Band played. Their complementary choreography and skillful teamwork are models for joyful living!
Gene grew up in Huntington Park, California, while Joyce hails from Pennsylvania. Both attended UCLA, but didn’t know one another there. After a stint with the Seabees in Okinawa and Guam, Gene graduated from Cal, Berkeley, and had his own architectural firm in West Los Angeles for forty-five years. From early childhood, Joyce was interested in dress design. She worked in her father’s...
It is the "giving" season, and Stan and Elaine Goff, Villa residents, have been as generous in giving of themselves as any other folks at University Village – perhaps more than many.
Asked about his career, Stan names three: first as a CPA; second as COO and Executive VP of RB Furniture, a New York Stock Exchange company; and third as managing partner of Josam, an investment company in diversified real estate entities. He has also given a lifetime of service to his communities, currently through SCORE, a non-profit organization funded by the Small Business Administration, through which Stan has donated...
Residents of Lakeview, second floor, know her as a caring, hospitable neighbor and communicative Building Representative. Participants in excursions to Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple, the Santa Barbara Orchid Show or Solvang shopping have experienced her group leadership. Who? Exuberant, knowledgeable SHIRLEY JAFFE, of course!
Drama and the stage were always high on Shirley’s interest list, as actress, singer and dancer. Ask Shirley about her first audition under the fictitious name, Patricia Bronson. “Patricia” almost missed her “Please remain to talk to us” invitation, not recognizing the name being called! But a show business career was not in Shirley’s parents’ plans for...