Yolanda Araiza Nesom was born November 10, 1936, in El Paso, Texas, to Eduardo Baldomero “E.B.” Araiza and Josefina Islas Araiza. A daughter of the Southwest, Yolanda maintained a deep affection for El Paso throughout her life, especially its mountains, open skies, and distinctive desert landscape.
Yolanda devoted much of her professional life to education, counseling, and helping young people find their way. She began her career as a social worker in Santa Clara County, California. After returning to El Paso with two young children, she taught Head Start while pursuing her master’s degree in counseling, which she earned in 1968.
Her first high school counseling assignment was at Bowie High School. In the early 1970s, she returned to a place that already held a special place in her life—El Paso High School, from which she herself had graduated years earlier. Yolanda loved her years at El Paso High and spent much of her career there as a counselor. Her final counseling position was at Magoffin Middle School before her retirement.
Retirement brought a new chapter centered around family and creativity. Yolanda moved to Carrollton, Texas, to be closer to her grandchildren, Aaron, Elissa, and Rachel. There, she took up watercolor painting and soon became a teacher once again—this time with her grandchildren gathered around her.
She taught them to paint, sharing her love of color, creativity, and the simple pleasure of making something together. Those watercolor lessons became some of their most cherished memories of their grandmother.
When her family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2005, Yolanda followed, continuing to make her home near her grandchildren. In 2015, she returned to El Paso and lived with her sister Irene until Irene’s death the following year.
Yolanda was an avid reader and a watercolor artist. Throughout the different chapters and places of her life, El Paso remained home in a special way, and she never lost her appreciation for the rugged beauty of the desert.
She was preceded in death by her parents, E.B. and Josefina Araiza; her sisters, Delia Werthmann and Irene Araiza; and her brother-in-law, Henry Werthmann.
Yolanda is survived by her daughters, Johanna Nesom White and her husband, Richard White, and Susan Nesom Teran; her grandchildren, Aaron Joshua Teran and his wife, Autumn Teran, Elissa Danielle Foss and her husband, Christopher Foss, and Rachel Nicole Teran; and her great-grandchildren, Dominic Williams, Maverick Williams, Gabriel Foss, Athena Teran, and Josiah Foss.
