Flord Escobar

News Obituary Article

SUWANEE: Flord Escobar, 54, hospital lab manager

By J.E. GESHWILER

During the last two years while Flord Escobar served as laboratory manager at Northside Hospital-Forsyth in Cumming, this immigrant daughter of a Philippine air force colonel impressed everyone with her thoroughness and leadership qualities --- and her courage.

"Flord was very sick. Her cancer was very aggressive," said Lynn Jackson of Cumming, the facility's administrator. "Yet she made a heroic effort to prepare the lab for a meticulous survey by the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care, whose seal of approval is essential if the lab is to continue getting Medicare and Medicaid compensation.

"Not only did the lab pass the survey earlier this year, it did so with a 100 rating, which so far as I know is unheard of," Ms. Jackson said.

"Flord was a gifted leader, like a symphony conductor who brings out the best in her musicians. She was especially good at conveying instructions. Her English was excellent. Still, she had a pronounced accent, but that only commanded people's attention and made them listen to her harder," Ms. Jackson said.

The funeral Mass for Flordeliza Escobar, 54, is 10:30 a.m. Friday at St. Benedict's Catholic Church. She died of cancer Monday at her Suwanee residence. Bill Head Funeral Home, Duluth Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.

The Manila native came to the United States in 1969 and became a citizen in 1977. She was a laboratory supervisor at two hospitals in Boston and oversaw the training of medical technician students at two Massachusetts colleges. She came to Atlanta in 1996, first to work at Emory University Hospital and then the Atlanta Medical Center.

While in Boston, she was president of the Philippine-American Cultural Association of New England and took part in a folk dance troupe, both as a dancer and a costume decorator.

"She was a very good dancer, but her health wouldn't permit it the last few years," said her sister, Gracita Chiefe of Randolph, Mass. "Even so, she choreographed folk dances for Filipino nurses here to perform at a national convention for Philippine-American medical technologists, held last September at Stone Mountain."

Mrs. Escobar was a eucharistic minister at her church in suburban Boston and also at St. Benedict's.

Survivors include her husband, Jose Escobar; two sons, Joseph Escobar and Jonathan Escobar, both of Suwanee; her father and stepmother, Andres and Mary Orquiola of Randolph; two other sisters, Henrietta Orquiola of Randolph and Bella Claravell of New York City; and four brothers, Albert Orquiola of Wilbraham, Mass., Carlos Orquiola of Manila, Danny Orquiola of Boston and Edgar Orquiola of Suwanee.

© 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution