Mrs. Yolanda Poma Spitz

Yolanda Poma Spitz was born 3/12/1932, on her family’s ranch in Aguilar Colorado, to Victor and Louise Poma, and died May 26, 2023, in her home of 52 years, surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

She is survived by her children, Brad and his wife Jo, Dana and her husband Kevin, Leslie and her husband Steve, Romy, Scot and his wife Juna, her grandchildren Dylan and his wife Kaitlin, Kirra and her husband Yukio, Corinne, Carson, Colton, MacKenzie, Riley, Brice and her husband Michael, her great-grandson, Wyatt, and her brother-in-law Alan.

When Yodie was 5 years old, her father, Victor died, and she and her audacious mother, Louise, took a train to Los Angeles. She and Louise lived in East LA, in an apartment above the Green Mill, the cafe that Louise worked in and later bought. Yodie spent a lot of time in the library while her mother worked. She studied Catechism in a Jesuit school, and treasured her classical education. The Jesuits’ intellectual rigor, nuance and pragmatism was her earliest model of scholarship, and inspired her to excel. She graduated from James A Garfield High School as Valedictorian.

She met Barton Spitz, at LA City College. She was studying Nursing, and nursing her love for semantics, Bart was a year behind her, taking the prerequisites for University. Theirs was a modern romance, cross cultural in the sense that she was an Italian Catholic and he a Russian Jew, creating an opportunity for cultural growth for both families. Together, they lived the emerging beach, and college cultures in 1950’s LA, married after graduation, and for their honeymoon, drove cross country to Rochester NY. In Rochester, Yodie supported them as a psychiatric nurse. They loved the seasons, and the beauty of the Mohawk Valley and Lake country. In their last year at Rochester, they started their family.

Over the next 6 years, between medical school in Rochester, Residency in Torrance and service in the United States Air Force in Bermuda, she bore 5 children. After considering reenlistment, they moved their family to San Diego.

In San Diego she raised her 5 very busy kids, worked at Mission Bay Hospital, retiring as House Supervisor, made mosaics and needlepoint art, played tennis, and cultivated many lovely, enduring friendships. She learned to dance the funky chicken. She was a Den Mother in Cub Scouts, and a GSA leader in Girl Scouts. She was active in the PTA and the Sharp Hospital Auxiliary. There was Little League and Bobbie Sox, and Pop Warner, school bands, soccer, wrestling, field hockey, cheerleading, surf trips to San Onofre, sailing in the Caribbean with Romy and Scot, and camping trips to the Sierra. She made childhood as busy, and happy as it could be.

Yodie and Bart moved to Yuma in 1981, and had the best years of their practice there. They had a gracious condo across the street from the Padres Training camp. Louise lived with them in Yuma, and would razz Tony Gwynn in spring training. Periodically, he’d answer her back. Leslie joined Yodie and Bart in Yuma, and Brad and Jo moved there in 1992. Mom was Brad’s office manager, easily the best 4 years of his practice.

After retirement, Yodie and Bart moved back to their house in Pacific Beach. They were volunteer docents at the Scripps Aquarium, and traveled many times to Europe, Hawai’i, and Bonaire. Yodie loved Switzerland the best, for it’s breathtaking natural beauty, and social order, and she considered her Piedmontese ancestors to be basically Swiss. Yodie reconnected with her PB friends, taking trips to LA and joining the inaugural Bunko group in the neighborhood. Over the decades, she and Scot have cultivated 2 yards full of magnificent plumerias, gifted to her by Finnie LaCava. For many decades, she hosted Christmas dinner, Easter Dinner, birthdays and innumerable Sunday dinners, her home filled with noise, children, good food and love.

She valued self sufficiency, loyalty to her loved ones, honesty and owning one's mistakes. Yodie never sat down until she had to, she was too busy running the house. She deeply valued usefulness, and for a girl who never played team sports, she gave us the best imaginable advice on finding one’s place in the line-up, saying “if you can’t be good, be useful.” which is translated as, “you don’t need to swing away, drop that bunt.”

Here is a woefully incomplete list of things Yodie loved:

She loved Bart. They were married for 58 years, and never were apart. She was the most patient, attentive, supportive partner ever.

She loved her 5 children, their spouses, and her 8 grandchildren. She was smitten with her great grand-son.

She loved her Golden Retrievers, Neal, Odie, Wanda I and Wanda II, and Macy, the spirited little cat Romy brought to San Diego.

She loved Harry Potter: The books rekindled in her the agile and playful mind of a child. When she couldn’t sleep, she would go through the alphabet, and pick a character name for each letter, like Aberforth, Bill, Cho, Diggory, Elphias, and so on.

She loved history, particularly biographies, Will and Ariel Durant’s series, The History of Civilization, and the First Man of Rome series by Colleen McCullogh.

The Jesuits gave Yodie a love for Milton, not least because of the intersection of the human and spiritual reasons for fall from grace (particularly Eve’s), and path to it’s return, set in a dangerously political and doctrinal context. She used the following quote from Paradise Lost as her message about her husband and best friend, at the celebration of his life in 2013:

“Oh great spirit, thou dost prefer over tall temples, the upright man and true.”

This applies doubly to her.

We love you, Mom.