Helen Elizabeth Vida

VIDA, Helen Elizabeth Aged 93, 61 year resident of California, 45 of those years in Bradbury. Devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and, to her particular delight, great-grandmother. Born April 8, 1914 in Port Henry, New York to Rose Fejes Farkas and Adam Farkas, originally of Hungary, and who subsequently moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she grew up; died peacefully February 7, 2008, surrounded by family and friends. A fierce lifelong Democrat who had voted in every election since 1936, she was at rest having made her preferences known in the California Primary two days earlier. Equally fierce about the importance of education, and proud of her later-in-life B.A. in Anthropology from UCLA and Master's Degree in Education from California State University Los Angeles, she taught for more than 20 years in the English Department of El Monte High School until her retirement. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Alexander S. Vida, M.D. in 1981, by her parents in 1960 and 1962, by her brother William G. Farkas in 1967, and is survived by her daughter Judith E. Vida-Spence (Judith E. Vida, M.D.) and son-in-law Stuart T. Spence; grandson Theodore E.A. Spence, granddaughter-in-law Jenny Hall Spence, and great-granddaughter Elizabeth A. Spence; grandson Jonathan L. Spence; godson Robert Vida and his wife Velma Vida; cousin-by-marriage Monsignor George Vida of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church; special friend Barbara M. Oganesov, and by an extended family of nieces, nephews, loyal colleagues, and friends of more than one generation. Graveside services will be Wednesday, February 13, 1 p.m., at Rose Hills Memorial Park, 3888 Workman Mill Road, Whittier. In lieu of flowers, donations are welcomed to the Alexander S. Vida MD Memorial Scholarship Fund established in 1983 which she so generously supported, at the University of Michigan Medical School, c/o Jim Thomas, Office of Medical Development and Alumni Relations, 301 E. Liberty, Suite 400, Ann Arbor MI 48104-2251.