Asuncion (Sue) Mendoza, was born on August 15, 1929, in the barrio of Macabug, a little town outside Ormoc City, Leyte, Philippines. She was the eldest of eight children. Early on, she aspired to be a nun and to serve God. She had been inspired by her aunt, Mother Teresa, who was well known and highly respected in Ormoc City. Being the eldest, she was tasked to look after her younger siblings while pursuing a formal education.
Sue was only able to complete a second-grade level education when the Imperial Army of Japan invaded the Philippines in 1942, at the beginning of World War II. Her schooling was put on hold when her family moved to the mountains to hide from the occupying Japanese Imperial Forces. In the mountains, the family was constantly moving and hiding to avoid capture. The lack of food took its toll on the children and one of her younger sisters died from starvation during the time in hiding.
In 1945, General Douglas McArthur landed in Leyte and liberated Ormoc City and the surrounding barrios including Macabug. After the liberation, many of the American Filipino Army (mostly from Northern Philippines) with General McArthur’s landing party married the local girls in Ormoc City. At the age of 16, Sue married one of the soldiers. By the age of 20, she had four children. By the age of 28 she had six children. She did her best to provide for her children and relied mostly on her husband in America to send money that sometimes never came.
She recognized that her children’s future was to go to America. She submitted two applications: one in 1961 and another the following year to bring the children and join her husband. Her husband would not sign either one. However, he agreed to petition his six children to come to America, two at a time. The six original children began their migration to America in 1961, 1967 & 1968.
Alone and desperate, at the age of 35, she started another family outside her marriage. She had another 3 children. In 1969, with the support from one of her daughters, she was able to leave the Philippines, reluctantly leaving the three youngest children behind in order to join her other six children who had already immigrated. With her limited education and skills, she was able to secure a job as a caregiver to Jennie Mastrandrea, Mr. Joe’s wife.
After Jennie Mastrandrea passed on, Sue accepted a job with the Armanini family in Sunnyvale. This was the same Armanini family that founded the Sunnyvale Clinic, now known as the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Group. After the Armaninis, Sue worked for other families in the Bay Area as a live-in baby sitter. She moved to Chicago with the Shaw family and lived there for the next ten years. As the Shaw children grew older and her services were no longer needed, Sue returned to California and continued to work as a live-in baby sitter. Eventually, she was able to bring her remaining three children to America in 1986.
After she retired in the late 90’s, she moved back in with Mr. Joe Mastrandrea until his passing in March 2006. She tried to live independently, sometimes living with one of her daughters, or taking a room for rent. She moved to the Borregas Apartments and lived there for her last five years. Sue became known at the Borregas Apartment as “grandma.” After a fall in May 2018, she entered the Skyline Nursing Care facility in San Jose. Sue remained at the Skyline Nursing facility where she died peacefully on February 3, 2019.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18