Mildred Hoberg

Mildred Hoberg passed away Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005, in San Mateo. She was two days shy of her 96th birthday.

Born Mildred Koehler in San Francisco to Edward and Clara in 1909, she spent summers on Cobb Mountain at Hoberg's Resort with her family, where she met and fell in love with Paul Hoberg. In 1929 they were married and made their home at the resort, where Paul was a cook in the family business and Mildred kept the books. They had three children, Jane, Beverly and Richard.

In 1946, Paul passed away unexpectedly after a short illness, leaving Mildred to raise their teenage children and care for her widowed mother. In a time when women were not trained or expected to make business decisions or manage the affairs of a family, Mildred was forced to become a leader.

With three years of high school and two decades of experience helping to run a resort business, and with her mother, children and younger brother, Ed, helping her, she moved to the Anza-Borrego Desert near Julian, where she built and ran Mildred Hoberg's Desert Resort. After several successful years, she traded the resort for a run down hotel in Pasadena, remodeled and converted it to apartments and in the process met and married John Ward.

Within a year Mr. Ward passed away, and so she sold the property, invested the money and retired to San Francisco to care for her mother, having put her three children through college. In 1955 she purchased a lake house near Jago Bay. In the 1970s she moved full-time to Lake County.

In 1984, she was a founder of Lake Community Bank, and served for many years as a director on its board.

She was the greatest grandmother ever. She toured the Soviet Union with Maureen Reagan, made soup with barley, gave her mother home permanents and went to "Lunch in the City" where she kept a house with white carpet and a grand piano.

In the summers she drove all six grandchildren around Northern California in her 1964 Lincoln with suicide doors, cleaned crappie, cursed mildly in German when upset, drove the ski boat and kept popsicles made from Welch's Concord grape juice in the garage freezer.

She was preceded in death by her daughter, Jane Falconer of Lower Lake, and her son, Richard Hoberg of Palo Alto.

She is survived by her daughter, Bev Mandel of San Bruno; grandchildren, Frank Mandel of Grapevine, Texas, Martha Watt of Novato, Ross Falconer of Careywood, Idaho, Todd Falconer of Lakeport, Kristen Hoberg-Thurston of Menlo Park, Lynn Hoberg of New York City; and 12 great-grandchildren. She was deeply loved by all.

The lake house property is still in the family, cared for and enjoyed each summer by her progeny who will never forget the selflessness, courage and determination of this remarkable person and who are her living legacy. Business was business, but her family was her life.

A family celebration of her life will be held shortly at the lake house, and every Fourth of July for the foreseeable future.

She will be cremated and laid next to her first husband, Paul, in the Hoberg family plot on Bottle Rock Road.