Diana Kest Lando

As the daughter of educators and community leaders, Diana Ruth Kest Lando devoted her professional life to teaching and her personal life to hearth and home. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah on April 12, 1944, Diana died at age eighty on October 31, 2024, in Melbourne, Florida due to complications from advanced Parkinson's Disease.

Moving to the San Francisco Bay Area after graduation from Brigham Young University, Diana taught elementary children in public schools for 40 years. She took particular interest and enjoyment in her work mentoring and training future teachers. In 1976 she married Stanley Lando and they raised their two children, Joshua and Rachael, and stepson, Robert. Diana was an active member of her Jewish community and took pride participating in various Temple activities and leadership roles throughout her life. Widowed in 1998, her life remained full with family, travel, teaching and the fellowship of friends. She was an accomplished pianist and singer with Temple choirs and enjoyed traveling and performing with the Bay Area Showcase Chorus, a chapter of Sweet Adelines International. Along the way she developed a love of mahjong and the occasional well-crafted margarita, but there was nothing she treasured more than spending hours chatting with friends and family both in person and by telephone.

Diana is survived by her son Joshua Lando, his wife Lisa and their children Isaac and Nina in Northern California; her daughter Rachael Friedman, her husband Joe Friedman and their children Eliana, Isabella, and Annika in Melbourne, Florida; stepson Robert Lando and his husband Albert Lopez in Bakersfield, California; her brother David Laurence Kest and his husband Robert (Sandy) Chamberlain and her sister, Allyson Kest Flowers in Phoenix, Arizona. She was predeceased by her sister, Helaine Kest Keele, and her parents, Robert and Evelyn Kest. Plans for a service are pending. In lieu of flowers, please best honor her memory by calling someone you love and reminding them how special they are.