Wanda Jean Homen

Wanda Jean Homen, 98 years of age, passed away peacefully at her home in Newark, California on April 18, 2026. She was preceded in death by her loving husband, Donald Homen, to whom she was married for 68 of those years and her son, Bret Homen. She is survived by her children, Mark (Franie) Homen, Holly (Tom) Stellman and Guy (Mandy) Homen, grandchildren Chris Gilroy, Luke (Anna) Homen, Amy (Eric) Torrence, Kyle (Becky) Homen, Joshua Homen, Zach Headland and Sara Salata, fifteen great-grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

She was born Wanda Jean Woodard, the only child of Elvin and Opal Woodard in St. Joseph, Kansas. They relocated to California during the Great Depression where she attended school and became one of the first women to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. She became a schoolteacher, instructing young students at schools in Fairfield and Pacific Grove, California. After marrying Donald on December 26, 1954, she took a few years off to raise her four young children, Mark, Holly, Guy and Bret. She then returned to teaching in 1970, becoming a reading specialist in the Fremont Unified School District and later earning her masters degree in education at California State University, Hayward. Never losing her passion for the written word, Wanda continued to tutor young children after her retirement in 2004, as well as pen a monthly news article about women’s rights in the United States and abroad for her teacher’s magazine, Twig.

In 2015, Wanda embarked a new career as an author of children’s’ books, writing, illustrating and publishing thirty different titles over an eight-year period, many of them featuring her beloved miniature pincher dogs, all available on Amazon. As she states in her online biography, “I try to incorporate what I call "life lessons" for children in my stories. I also like to inject humor into these stories. My aim is to help children to discover the magic in reading that I enjoyed as a child.”

Wanda loved to travel, visiting over fifty countries on six different continents during her lifetime, from Yellowstone Park to Buckingham Palace to the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the Australian outback and Machu Picchu in Peru. In each country, she would collect dog figurines, which she proudly displayed in her dining room. Late into her nineties, Wanda kept up with the times, paying her bills online, communicating through social media and reading books on her Kindle. She left an amazing legacy as the matriarch of her family, having lived a long, joyful and productive life. Wanda died in her sleep, with family and friends at her side, her beloved Minipini dog at the foot of her bed.