Sonja "Yaya" O. Tudela

Sonja was born in Houston on the 6th of November 1942, to Olga Ripley-Pérez and Louis J. Ripley, and passed away peacefully at home in Houston at 2:57PM on Saturday, the 24th of February 2024. She was 81 years of age. She had been under home hospice care since September of 2022 suffering from PPA (Primary Progressive Aphasia), a type of front temporal dementia with no cure or treatment.

Sonja grew up along side her younger sister Lydia and brother Carlos.

Sonja graduated from Mount Carmel Academy as well as a Business Academy in Houston. She worked for the Postmaster General at the Main Post Office in downtown Houston. In 1962, Sonja met Alberto Tudela, a Venezuelan engineering student at University of Houston. They married on the 6th of September 1966.

After Alberto graduated from U. of H. in 1967, they went to live in Venezuela and had three children. Sonja and Alberto moved permanently back to Houston in 2006.

Sonja is survived by her brother, Carlos Ripley and his family; her husband, Alberto Tudela-Reverter; their three children, Marina and her husband Edgar, Patricia and her husband Fernando, and Alberto Luis and his wife Javiera; and their eight grandchildren, Marina Isabel, Clarissa, Isabella, Emilio, Catalina, Chiara, Luis Alberto and Lucia.

A Memorial Mass is to be offered in Spanish at ten o'clock in the morning on Friday, the 1st of March at St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church, 6800 Buffalo Speedway in Houston.

Friends are cordially invited to a memorial reception with the family from half past three o'clock in the afternoon until six o'clock in the evening on Sunday, the 3rd of March, in the grand foyer of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.

“May Sonja rest in peace in the hands of the Lord knowing her spirit remains with us in cherished memories.”