Sylvia Christina Oliva

Sylvia Christina Oliva, of Blue Springs, Missouri, died quietly in her home at the age of 90 on October 26, 2025. Sylvia was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 8, 1934, to Dominic Michael Oliva and Rose Selma Oliva (née Inke). As a child, Sylvia traveled to Panama with her family. Her father, Dominic, was a machinist working on maintaining the various locks and rail lines of the Panama Canal during World War II. After the war, the Oliva family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Sylvia completed school, graduating from Schurz High School in Chicago in 1952.

Born to musicians – Rose was an accomplished pianist, who studied at Juilliard for a time and was a much sought-after accompanist for silent films, and Dominic once played cello for the Philadelphia Municipal Orchestra (now the Philadelphia Philharmonic) under Leopold Stokowski – Sylvia could never remember a time when she didn’t know how to read music. She would recount fond childhood memories of lounging under her mother’s grand piano when Rose was playing or practicing.

Originally interested in playing violin, she was steered toward the cello early in her musical education by a teacher who noted her hands and her ability with vibrato were better suited to the finger board of the instrument, so she made the switch and never looked back. Of course, she joined orchestra in high school and was playing first chair in the cello section by the middle of her sophomore year. From that time she always maintained the first chair position in all the orchestras she played in. High school orchestra was also where she met Gerald (Jerry) Lee Hutchison, who would eventually become her first husband. They met through Sylvia’s older brother, Rudy. Both young men also played in the orchestra’s cello section.

After high school, Sylvia spent some time studying at University of Illinois at Urbana and then at George Washington University in Washington, DC, where her aunt, Lillian Inke, was teaching poetry. Sylvia eventually followed her Aunt Lil out to the Contra Costa area of California. It was during a hike on Mount Tamalpais, that Sylvia fell in love with the area and decided to make her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. After studying physics (her second-favorite after music) at Cal Berkely, Sylvia transferred to San Francisco State College (now University) and completed her music degree in the early 1960s. By this time, Jerry had followed her out to California and proposed. They married in Chicago in 1960 and traveled back to California, by way of Washington DC, where they settled in Richmond for the first few years of their marriage. Lea Marguerite was born to them in 1965 with Linden Elizabeth following a few years later in 1968. By this time the family had relocated to Sunnyvale, California in Santa Clara Valley at the south end of the Bay. They remained in Sunnyvale for about 4 years before moving to San Jose (now Cupertino) in 1970.

Sylvia had many interests during this time. In addition to spending time with her daughters, she also loved hiking and camping. Mount Tamalpais, Muir Woods and Yosemite National Park were particular favorites, as well as trips to the beach at Santa Cruz. She would frequently hike or camp on her own, but she also enjoyed taking her daughters with her. In addition to her love of all things Brahms and Bach, and playing the cello for The Master Symphonia, a regional symphony orchestra in the south Bay Area, Sylvia developed a keen interest in early Renaissance music. She learned to play Viola da Gamba and eventually built her own. She played in several early music and chamber ensembles in and around the Bay Area. 

In 1974, Sylvia and Jerry divorced after 13 years of marriage and Sylvia had to enter the workforce. Her short stint at Berkeley and a natural affinity for physics and coding gave her an ‘in’ to the nascent computer industry in Cupertino that eventually gave rise to companies like Intel, HP and Apple – all based in that town. While at Cal in the 1960s, Sylvia worked for a time as a computer (ie, a person who does computations). During that era, mathematicians would check the work and do further calculations involved with the programming of early computational machines – what we refer to today as computers. Sylvia checked the work of a programmer that worked on machines that eventually made their way to NASA and were used in both the Gemini and Apollo space programs. 

This work gave Sylvia the knowledge to work as a software engineer at Measurex, which was a company that manufactured computers used in the making of various paper products used in paper mills around the country. In 1977, Sylvia married Willard Henry Thulin and gained two stepsons, David and Jeffery. Together with her daughters, the family of now 6 moved in 1978 to a small town in southwest Colorado, Mancos, which sits in a valley just east of Mesa Verde National Park. Sylvia and Willard were divorced shortly after in 1979. Though the marriage was short, the split was amicable. Sylvia’s life in Colorado was an eclectic mix of music, nature and science.

She spent many years working as a music teacher in private music studios in Durango, Colorado and Farmington, New Mexico. She taught strings and keyboards (mostly strings) to students as young as 3 and as old as 75. During this time, she also learned how to repair stringed instruments and developed quite a ‘side-hustle’ with this knowledge. In the 1990s she had a small, two-room house moved onto her property two miles out of town, where she wired in solar power, plumbed in well-water and even had a composting toilet, so she could live ‘off-the-grid.’ The only outside utility she had was the hard-wired landline and internet.

Also in the 1990s, she was able to combine two of her main interests and became a contract scientist for the National Park Service at Mesa Verde National Park (referred to locally as The Park). Working as an air-quality scientist, Sylvia was considered to be and wore the uniform of a National Park Ranger. Her job took her on many hikes and horseback rides to areas in Mesa Verde where regular visitors are never allowed (for conservation reasons) as well as other federal lands in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. She even had the opportunity to camp overnight in several of the archeological ruins for which The Park is famous. Sylvia was present at the birth of all but one of her grandchildren (somebody had to stay with Breana!) and was a help and support to her daughter, Linden, during these post-birth periods. She took joy in her daughters and her grandchildren. In 2007, Sylvia retired from the NPS and moved to Blue Springs, Missouri. She shared a home with her daughter, Margaux (Lea), and lived one street over from Linden and Mark and their family.

Sylvia spent the last 18 years of her life near her daughters and grandchildren gardening, repairing instruments, teaching cello to her granddaughters, helping to homeschool her grandson, participating in the local HAM radio clubs and feeding the cats. She also worked for the Jackson County Election Board as a poll worker on election days. Early in 2024, Sylvia was diagnosed with lung cancer. By the time it was discovered it had already metastasized to her lymph system and brain. The tumor in her brain was hampering her ability to communicate so within a few weeks of her diagnosis, she made the rather extraordinary decision to have surgery to excise the tumor. The surgery was a success and after several weeks of recovery, she returned home to her daughters and her cats. Other therapies worked for about a year, but eventually the cancer started to progress again. Sylvia passed away peacefully at home in the early hours of Sunday, October 26, 2025.

Syliva is preceded in death by her parents, Rose and Dominic; her brothers, David, Rudy and Carl, her sisters-in-law, Joan and Lynn (David); her niece Sue Nates (née Oliva); and her nephews Gregory Oliva and Gregory Hutchison. She is also preceded in death by her previous husbands, Gerald Lee Hutchison and Willard Henry Thulin.

She is survived by her daughters, Margaux Hutchison and Linden (Mark) Jenesse, her stepsons, David Thulin and Jeffrey (Safari) Thulin, her grandchildren, Breana Jenesse, Karissa Jenesse, Sariah Jenesse and Dominic Jenesse; her sister-in-law, Holly (Carl) Oliva; her nieces Jean (Buddy) Wilson (née Hutchison), Elizabeth Cappelli (née Oliva), Carolyn (AJ) Shannon (née Oliva) and Ellisa Oliva and her nephew Brian (Sarah) Oliva. Sylvia will be remembered lovingly by all who knew her.

A memorial gathering to remember Sylvia’s life will be held at 11:30AM on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1416 SW 19 th Street, Blue Springs, Missouri 64014.

Should you prefer donations to flowers, we would suggest KC Hospice for their excellent service.