Rebecca Elizabeth Hlavinka was the coolest hippest smartest kindest and most generous woman we ever knew. Happiness was her gift and she spread happiness, grace and acceptance everywhere and to everyone that she met. Did we mention that she was beautiful?
Rebecca claimed to be a fifth-generation Houstonian but she was really born in Bossier City, Louisiana on January 22, 1968. She did get to Houston as fast as she could and spent most of her life in the great city that she loved before her death on December 4, 2022. She had a fabulous life full of love, happiness, wonderful and interesting friends, and a great family that will miss her dearly.
Rebecca’s early childhood was spent in Spring Branch; she was a latch-key kid while her mother worked building houses for some of Houston’s most prominent residents. Her keen intellect was displayed early when she skipped fourth grade and immediately transitioned to fifth grade at West University Elementary. She spent those West U days at the West U pool; swimming, catching rays, and eating Cheetos. Her middle and high school years were spent at Pershing Middle School and Lamar High School. Rebecca was very proud to be a cheerleader at Lamar and equally proud to still be able to wear her Lamar Redskins cheerleading vest 30 years hence. She was happy that her middle son, Walter, carried on the Lamar tradition and especially enjoyed the touchdown that Walter scored in the last game of his senior season on the Lamar football team.
Rebecca attended Baylor University, where she met some of the most interesting and wonderful friends of her life. Rebecca was a philosophy major and admittedly something of a Baylor “misfit,” as almost all of her good friends at Baylor were. Yet, collectively they molded a great college experience that they all look back upon with fondness. Some of her best college days memories included international travel, with extensive travel to Europe (by herself, with a Eurail Pass) and spending a summer doing anthropology field work in Oaxaca, where she learned fluent Spanish and a native accent that received compliments from Spanish speakers in Houston for decades to come.
College graduation was followed by a move to Santa Barbara, California. Her Santa Barbara years were spent frolicking in the Pacific, exploring the Mesa (where she lived next door to Beach Boy Mike Love), and involved a fair amount of couch surfing, too. The post-college years exploring California’s beauty were a special and care-free time made even better by the fact that her sister and her brother lived in Orange County and San Francisco, respectively, during that same time period. While living in California, Rebecca visited almost every national park in the west.
Rebecca returned to Houston in the early 1990s. She worked for the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County – where she very much enjoyed helping people with mental and physical disabilities – and took up base in the Museum District. There, she hosted numerous fun social gatherings, though none of them topped her annual and epic Christmas parties.
In June 1994, she was very lucky to have met the love of her life (or, rather, he was the lucky one). She lived a true, real-life love story with her husband and prince charming, Jon, one of the great gentlemen of all time. To say that the remaining 28 years of her life were a whirlwind is a vast understatement. Never a dull moment.
Rebecca and Jon’s courtship was full of romantic memories, perhaps topped off by a trip to the 1995 New York City Marathon and an unforgettable dinner at Le Bernardin Restaurant in Manhattan with her future father-in-law, Victor F. Hlavinka, his wife Suzy, and the rest of her soon to be step family. This is a trip and dinner that Rebecca and Jon have always been so grateful for and Rebecca wanted “Grandpa Vic” to know how much she treasured that experience. While at the Museum of Modern Art on this trip Grandpa Vic assured Rebecca that, though Jon admittedly had his flaws, he was “trainable.” He lied, but who wouldn’t to secure a marital commitment from a great daughter-in-law such as Rebecca?
Though Rebecca had been accepted for an appointment to the Peace Corps, she declined the appointment and instead she and Jon married on March 28, 1998. Never was there a better marriage or a better honeymoon. The happy couple took a trip to Italy and due to Rebecca’s admittedly lacking navigational skills they soon ended up in an accidental trip through the winding, hairpin, and harrowing roads along and above the Amalfi Coast. The rest of the trip was actually planned and included time in Rome, Vatican City, Naples, Pompeii, Capri, and most memorably at the astoundingly beautiful Bellevue Syrene Hotel in Sorrento.
Together, they raised three of the finest, most committed boys, who live by the enduring values of their mom and dad. Rebecca’s family was her reason for existence; she loved her husband and her boys, whom she referred to as her “three perfect sons.” Her family defined her and brought her all of the joy in the world. In good and difficult times, she was the rock and the voice of reason, always ready with sage advice or a witty remark to calm the chaos of the Hlavinka household.
The “three perfect sons” are: her Christmas Baby, Joseph Weston Hlavinka; her Blue-Eyed Baby, Jonathan Walter Hlavinka; and her Birthday Baby, Louis Victor “Bobby” Hlavinka. Never was there a better mother.
Rebecca’s life work was her total devotion to her family and every activity in which they participated. Her family was her everything – and each one of her precious boys knew it. She was so very proud of her three sons, who provided her with incalculable joy through their work in the classroom, in the community, on the ballfields (especially the football field at Lamar), in Kantorei at St. John’s School, in musical theater, and just in general. Some of her best days were spent listening to Joseph play piano at his piano lessons, attending choir concerts at St. John’s School, watching Walter play lacrosse and be a West U Little League All-Star, going to see Bobby perform in musicals, and hanging out with Bobby and watching movies during “COVID” after his brothers had graduated from high school and left home. Each of her three boys is an Eagle Scout. Collectively, the family developed a language of unique phrases and expressions that will be studied by puzzled linguists for decades to come.
Most recently, Rebecca was very proud to attend Joseph’s graduation from Brown University, to watch Walter achieve his dream of playing college football and continue his education at the University of Houston, and to help Louis move in to begin his matriculation at Texas A&M University. The family enjoyed several great trips through the years: a special family cruise to Alaska; several
Astros spring training/Disney trips, first to Kissimmee, Florida and later to West Palm Beach; California on several occasions, including trips in the Hlavinka family tradition to Balboa Island, and trips to Santa Barbara and San Francisco, among other places. Of note was the occasion when the family was inexplicably “upgraded” from a regular room to a stay in the Leona Helmsley Penthouse atop the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York City, adjacent to Central Park. This was an unexpected, unpredictable, and unforgettable stay in one of the most chic penthouses in the world with one of the best views in the world. Rebecca and Jon’s marriage thrived on such spontaneity.
After spending several years concentrating on raising her boys, Rebecca worked at the Consulate of Ghana in Houston, where she rubbed elbows with and wrote visas for numerous prominent celebrities, politicians, and athletes.
Rebecca volunteered at the Astrodome after Hurricane Katrina, set up a diabetes clinic at NRG Arena during and after Hurricane Harvey, and loved volunteering at Annunciation Orthodox School, in the library at St. John’s School, at HISD, for the West University Little League Auxiliary, at the Orange Show, as silent auction chair for the JDRF Houston Gala, at the Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, and on numerous occasions as room mom and team mom. She sometimes provided the homeless with blankets and jackets and taught her boys about the import of caring for, accepting, and loving others, regardless of their stripes. Her proudest achievement was raising her three sons to have respect for themselves and for those around them.
The last portion of Rebecca’s life was spent under the cloud of a Stage 3 ovarian cancer diagnosis. Her courage and dignity were an inspiration.
Rebecca was pre-deceased last year by her special friend, and JDRF “Dia-Bestie”, Michelle McIntyre. Together, Michelle and Rebecca formed the Hlavinka-McIntyre JDRF Walk Team in support of finding a cure for the dreadful disease that is juvenile diabetes. They raised over $150,000 for medical research to cure Type 1 diabetes and in lieu of flowers Rebecca hoped that those desiring would consider a donation to the JDRF in honor of Michelle at the following link: http://www2.jdrf.org/goto/rebeccahlavinka.
Rebecca liked simple things and saw things differently. She loved orchids. The way that light shone into the room was important to her. Her amateur interior design skills were unmatched. She knew how to make a simple home a beautiful place and could turn the simplicity of Brays Bayou walnuts into a beautiful fall arrangement. Her every creation was filled with her trademarked passion and love. She liked decorating for the holidays. Some of her fondest memories were of her boys’ days at the Bellaire United Methodist Church School for Little Children. She loved driving the kids around in the family Sequoia, and later the family Suburban (which has traveled every inch of freeway between Miami and Los Angeles). She believed in people and rooted for all of the kids that she met to succeed and could not wait to see how they all turned out. She believed that there are too many beautiful wonders for one person to see. She loved music and the arts. And she had good taste in both of them.
She was also very grateful for random things that happened in her life, especially the Dazed and Confused cast party in Austin long ago, the 4th of July party at the United States Embass
Mexico City, the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, a private tour of the Pantheon, the backyard Alanis Morissette concert held at her neighbor’s house down the street, Campus Dance in Providence, RI, and her trip to Santorini!!!!! She had vivid and fond memories of sitting on the beach in Key West enjoying a bottle of Sonoma Cutrer with Jon, while the waves lapped under the table at their feet.
This was certainly not the way that Jon and Rebecca thought it was going to end. She was supposed to be patiently caring for Jon as he became an ornery and grumpy old man sitting in front of the T.V. yelling at the screen during Astros games. As positive proof of her love and devotion to their marriage, Rebecca even became a baseball (Astros) fan.
Left behind to cherish Rebecca’s memory are her husband, Joseph Jonathan Hlavinka, and her three sons, Joseph Weston Hlavinka, Jonathan Walter Hlavinka, and Louis Victor “Bobby” Hlavinka. Rebecca is also survived by her mother, Barbara Weston Scott; her mother-in-law, Ruby M. Hlavinka; her father-in-law Victor F. Hlavinka (Suzy); her sister-in-law Wanda Northam (Jon); and her four nieces and nephews Claire Long (Clint), Mark Northam, Adam Northam, and Ben Northam. She is also survived by her sister Rachel Keller (Dan) and their kids Sarah and Sam, and her brother Alex Vitale (Elizabeth Palley), and their kids Charlotte and Amelia.
The family would like to thank “Becky’s Besties,” whose friendship and love sustained Rebecca throughout her life, and who cannot be adequately thanked for all that they have done over the past 21 months in support of Rebecca and her family.
In addition, the family also thanks Dr. Amir Jazaeri and all of his dedicated staff at M.D. Anderson for their care, compassion, and bedside manner. Rebecca participated in one of Dr. Jazaeri’s clinical trials, which helped her continue her lifelong habit of selfless service to others but also bought time for her to see Joseph and Bobby graduate and to take a final family trip to Santa Barbara.
A memorial reception in Rebecca’s honor will be held on January 7, 2023. If you would like to attend please contact Jon via text and he will forward the details to you.
Rebecca is so deeply missed by so many because of the person she was. She was a bright light. It was the honor of Jon’s life to be married to her and particularly to take care of her over the last several months of her life.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.AdvantageHoustonFunerals.com for the Hlavinka family.
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