Francisca Morales

Francisca Castillo was born 4 Oct 1920 in Las Lajas, Consolacion del Sur, Pinar del Rio, Cuba to her mother Maria del Pilar Alberto and father Ramon Castillo. She had 7 brothers and sisters; she was the 2nd oldest child. She went to live with her Tia Nicolasa at age 4 to attend school with her cousin, Nona. She went home during the summers to live with her family. She loved to ride horses bareback. She learned religion and love of Christ from her father. He taught her to gather children and teach them about Christ. Much of the rest of her life was spent gathering and leading people to Christ.

She went to the University of Havana while working at a small pharmacy in Havana. She earned a degree with a major in Pharmacy with a minor in Mathematics. The pharmacy was owned by Arnaldo T. Morales, her future husband. They worked together to build a pharmacy business, fell in love, married in 1949 and started a family.

Arnie was born in 1953, Albert in 1954 and Abel in 1956. They spent summers at a beach house on the ocean. The boys grew and began school. The pharmacy was successful. In 1959 Castro entered Havana and took over the government. The rapid political changes were alarming and Francisca decided to move the family out of Cuba. Arnie was sent on a flight to Florida to live with a distant cousin. Albert and Abel went soon after to live with the same cousin. Francisca went to Florida 6 months later. Arnaldo followed a year later. They left with only their family photo albums. They both worked very hard saving money and brought all of the family out of Cuba that wanted to leave. Some went to Spain and then to USA, some went to South America and then to USA and her parents went to Mexico and then USA. They welcomed a new son, Alex. Once their extended family was settled in Florida from Cuba, they worked for a couple of years and an offer from a church to sponsor a family to Washington State was accepted by the Morales family in 1963. They lived in Renton. In 1966 they bought a house in Lake City.

Francisca worked as a Nurses aide, a house cleaner, a seamstress and eventually landed a job at the University of Washington Research Lab for Cold and Influenza as a lab research tech. She worked there for 15 years until she retired. Their family grew to include 8 grandchildren. They enjoyed spending time with their grandchildren, attending church, having barbeques and entertaining friends on domino night.

She lost her husband, Arnaldo in 1995. They had been married for 46 years. She continued to be faithful and love the Lord. She kept busy with bible study, helping friends, taking care of her grandchildren and attending their activities. She is known to those who love her as Fannie, Mami, Mom, Abuelita, Lita and Tata. She moved to Lynnwood and after a while she began inviting people to her home for bible study. The group grew and eventually became Christo Vive. She was very happy it was a success for Christ. She attended a service at Christo Vive shortly after her 98th birthday in October 2018. When she came home, she was filled with joy saying "they mentioned me as a founder of this church". She was so happy to be remembered.

She passed away peacefully in her sleep on 19 March 2019 at home with family.

She is survived by four sons, 8 grandchildren, 4 great grandchildren and one sister in Florida.

Thank you so much for honoring her life with your presence today.