Maria de los Angeles Young

Maria de los Angeles (Angela) was born in the beautiful seaside town of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico. Angela was always very proud of her hometown, and returned there often, bearing gifts for her beloved relatives, even after decades of living in the United States.

During her youth in Mazatlan, she enjoyed going out dancing, going to baseball games, spending time with good friends, attending the yearly Mardi Gras Carnival (the world’s third largest), and working in a hardware store, La Casa Colorada.

She emigrated from Mazatlan to Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 4, 1956, to live with her uncle and work as a seamstress. The following month she moved to Los Angeles, California, where she worked in the sweatshops of the garment district, sharing an apartment with other seamstresses on Pico Boulevard. She regularly sent money home to help support her widowed mother.

The month after arriving in Los Angeles, she went on a group date arranged by a professional matchmaker and found herself being ardently pursued by a young man in the party who had been paired with another girl. The first time this young man ever saw Angela, he was sitting with her in the backseat of a taxi in downtown Los Angeles. His name was Kenneth Young and he was an Army veteran, movie extra, and jewelry salesman from Dayton, Ohio.

Following a civil ceremony at Los Angeles city hall in December, 1957, and then a Roman Catholic ceremony at la Catedral Basilica de Mazatlan in January, 1958, Angela and Kenneth began their 54 years of married happiness. As a highly skilled seamstress, Angela made her own wedding dress.

Angela gave up working in the garment district in order to become a homemaker, while Kenneth began a thirty-year career as a driver’s license examiner at the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Angela and Kenneth are the parents of Robert Clark Young, a writer and journalist, and Chris Steven Young, a musician and poet.

The Youngs made their home in the Westchester district of Los Angeles from 1960 to 1973; in Lakeside, California from 1973 to 1974; and in the Egger Highlands neighborhood of South San Diego since 1974. Both boys attended Marian Catholic High School, with Robert going on to study writing at the University of San Diego, the University of California at Davis, and the University of Houston, and Chris going on to study philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Angela returned to the workforce in 1979, inventing the job of dining-room hostess at the Burger King restaurant located at Broadway and I Streets in Chula Vista. Other Burger King locations soon began to employ dining-room hostesses. In 18 years as a hostess at the Chula Vista location, Angela met thousands of people, talking to everyone, always cheerful, always asking about her customer’s kids and families and work and life experiences. Angela won the Gold plaque in the competition for Best Dining Room Hostess in San Diego County.

Kenneth retired from the State of California in 1989 and Angela retired from Burger King in 1997. They enjoyed their retirement years by being active in St. Charles parish, eating in good restaurants, visiting Indian casinos, and traveling often to New York City, Las Vegas, and Angela’s beloved hometown of Mazatlan.

Caring, kind, and loquacious, Angela soon indulged her love of people by becoming a sales representative for Avon Products. She became known all over her South San Diego neighborhood, walking miles every day, throughout her seventies, turning customers into friends.

Throughout her life, she was a master of how to get along with people, how to enjoy work, and how to imbue every job with dignity.

Angela was proud to become a United States citizen in 1999.

In March, 2008, Angela and Kenneth celebrated their golden wedding anniversary with dozens of friends and family from the United States and Mexico. For the renewal of their vows, at St. Charles Church in South San Diego, Angela wore the same wedding dress she had made and worn in 1958.

Angela continued to work until July, 2008, when she suffered a stroke that affected her speech. During the last four years of her life, she lived at home with Kenneth and their son Robert.

Despite her speech problem, Angela never lost her enjoyment of people, her smile, her sense of humor, her appetite for good food, or her love of family. Because of her endlessly positive and playful attitude, she enjoyed a high quality of life right up until her final moments.

She filled many people’s lives with precious memories, and she will never be forgotten by all of those who loved her.

Angela was preceded in death by all of the members of her beloved family of origin in Mexico: her mother, Francisca; her father, Jose; her sisters, Maria de Jesus (Chuy) and Maria del Rosario (Chayito); and her brothers, Joaquin, Jose, Juan Alberto, and Raul.

She has joined all of them now in Heaven.