Ella N. Yasecko

Born in Hanging Rock, Ohio, pre-deceased by her mother, Kate Elizabeth Strait Nance, father, Roscoe Alvin Nance, brothers, Charlie, Oscar, Henry, sister Bertha Atkins, and husband Joseph Yasecko. Survived by daughter Nancy Yasecko, son-in-law Robert Gilbert, grandsons John and Luke Gilbert.

Ella’s life embodied the American Experience. She was a patriot and an avid student of American history. Her ancestors emigrated from England to the British colonies of America. The family were pioneers to the West (Ohio) from the coastal colonies. Her great, great, great grandmother, Anne Bailey, was a frontierswoman credited with saving a fort in one of the first battles of the revolutionary war.

Ella grew up with 3 older brothers and one younger sister on a southwest Ohio farm during the depression, growing their own food, father making charcoal, mother baking bread and sewing clothing. Ella was her high school valedictorian in 1940, but turned down a full college scholarship to go to work to help the family.

Anyone who knew her would vouch for her integrity, but she told a fib when she said, “I don’t know how to type” to avoid the typing pool when she was hired at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton Ohio. She worked there through the war years and beyond, moving rapidly from Assistant Messenger to Under Clerk to Administrative Assistant to Civilian Chief, Purchase Request Control Officer. Working in Procurement, she help to buy material for WWII for all the US services, boots to planes, to aircraft carriers, 6 – 7 days a week.

In 1947 she married Joseph Yasecko, an engineer at the Wright Air Development Center. She joined a family of immigrants and first generation Americans as proud of their new country as she was.

In the 1950’s she moved with her family to the boom town of Cocoa Beach, where her husband worked as a project engineer for the Matador and then Atlas rockets. She embraced and supported her brilliant, loving, and unconventional husband.

She was sustained by a strong Christian faith. A founding member of Our Saviour’s Catholic Church, first gathering at the bowling alley, “St. Jakes by the Sea,” then at the groundbreaking for the church and school, with more than 50 years as a volunteer in the office, Catholic Women’s Club, and one of the cultural consultants to the first teaching Sisters from Ireland.

At home she worked as a self-taught paralegal processing quiet title suits for the family real estate business. She started college the first year courses were offered at BJC in Cocoa and finished Summa Cum Laude in business from FTU (UCF) the same year as her daughter completed a degree at USF.

She counted neighbors and friends as extensions of her own family, sharing their joys and sadness. Over her long life she endured the loss of many dear family members and friends. Throughout loss and disability, she kept her English stiff upper lip, meeting all challenges with grace and fortitude. And humor. She could be counted on to bring just the right joke to any gathering.

Ella lived her life in a positive way with devoted service to her family, faith, and country.

Services by the Life Event Center at Florida Memorial. A funeral Mass with reception to follow will be held at Church of Our Saviour, Sept 9 at 10:30am.