Jaelitza Ivusic

JAELITZA--Ms. Born Elaine Ivusic in Boston, MA on December 15, 1930, Jaelitza died December 18, 2023, three days after her 93rd birthday, in Cloverdale, CA while at home under hospice care. She adopted a Serbo-Croatian name some years after visiting her father's family in Croatia, where he was born. A graduate of Simmons College, she went on to accompany her husband, an English professor, to Paris, France, where her first son was born; then to Cairo, Egypt, where 11 months later her second son, William Edgell, who predeceased her in 2022, was born; then to Los Gatos, CA, where she lived when her daughter was born. After a divorce she supported her family by teaching school in Cupertino, CA; starting an alternative school; and working as a teacher and cook at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur for many years. A Francophile, she traveled to and lived in France and at age 72 undertook the pilgrimage Camino de Santiago but suffered the theft of her money and passport along the way. Although living close to nature and adopting a casual West Coast lifestyle, she kept in touch with her East Coast roots by subscribing to The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine. (One of her favorite New Yorker cartoons was of a grey-haired lady sitting in a bar and telling another elderly customer he would not know looking at her that once she was a beauty but that reading The New York Times every day for 60 years had taken its toll!) Throughout her life she was a reader and a steady postcard and letter-writer to family and friends and in later years began keeping a journal. She is survived by her son Christopher Edgell, of Cloverdale; daughter Victoria Edgell, granddaughter Nina Clark and great-grand- daughter Ruby Clark, of Santa Cruz, California; granddaughter Cassandra Cheddar and great-granddaughter Miranda Cheddar, of Aptos, CA; brother Christopher Ivusic of Washington, DC; nephew Sean Ivusic and cousins Tanner and Cora Ivusic, of Poolesville, MD. A memorial service is planned in the summer.