California
Dominique Bordagaray, 72
Died January 4, 2021.
McKinley Elementary School, Bakersfield, CA
Special Education
Dominique Bordagaray, 72, passed away January 4th, 2021, due to complications of COVID19. He died peacefully at Memorial Hospital with his wife and daughter holding his hands. Nick was a caring husband, father, grandfather, brother, and friend. He was born May 12, 1948, at St. Agnes Hospital in Fresno, California. He was the oldest child of Ernest Bordagaray and Ora Faye (Roe) Bordagaray.
Nick graduated from East Bakersfield High School in 1966. He attended Bakersfield College and received an AA in 1969. After graduation he went to Germany to live with his mother and stepfather, Frank Spencer. While there he worked at the NCO Club in Pirmasens, Germany. While living there he was able to travel to many places in Europe, including the Basque Country where he met his extended family.
He returned to Bakersfield in 1972 and began attending Cal State University Bakersfield. During this time he met a neighbor, Kate Drost. They were married on August 26, 1974, at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Bakersfield. He continued going to school and earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English and his teaching certificate in 1976. He taught college prep and Honors English at Garces Memorial High School for 15 years. Nick coached the Garces Academic Decathlon Team as well as the women’s soccer team. He also taught freshman English part time at CSUB. He switched careers and became a special education teacher in 1997. Since then he worked for Bakersfield City School District with students who have special needs.
Nick was a proud member of the Kern County Basque Club. While serving on the Club’s Board of Directors, he oversaw the Scholarship Program. He could be found in the kitchen washing dishes at most Club events. He really did that job well. Nick looked forward to attending Jaialdi in Boise, Idaho, this summer. Jaialdi is a Vizcayno word meaning Basque festival that brings everyone together every five years.
He enjoyed going out to dinner (in the old days), fishing, reading, and listening to the Grateful Dead. The neighbors could find him every evening and most Saturdays and Sundays sitting in the front of the garage smoking a cigar and watching some type of sports show. Nick’s favorite teams were the Dodgers, the Forty Niners, and the Blackburn Rovers. He looked forward to completing the LA Times’ Crosswords every day and telling jokes with his very dry sense of humor. He had great times with his nephew, Trevor Waldon, who would visit and smoke cigars with his uncle Nick. His favorite activity though was watching his daughter, Mary, play sports and later watching his grandchildren, Dominique, Mia, and Karra D’Amato, play their sports.
He was preceded in death by his father, Ernest, and his mother, Ora Faye. He leaves behind his wife, Kate Bordagary, his daughter, Mary D’Amato (husband Eric, and their three children, Dominique, Mia, and Karra), 8 siblings: Michael Bordagaray (wife Brenda), Trish Cobb (husband Mike), Michele Williams (husband Kelly), Jennie Preo (husband Mark), Ted Spencer (wife Dieuwke), Catherine Waldon (husband Grover), Jody Spencer (wife Noelle), John Bordagaray (wife Lisa), many nieces, nephews, and cousins. He is now in heaven and will be missed but remembered by family, friends, students, and coworkers.
There will be no service at this time. We want to make sure we can have a real celebration of his life with our family and friends without worrying about anyone else becoming ill with Covid19. We are hoping to hold the celebration in June or July 2021. Contributions in his name can be made to the Kern County Basque Club Scholarship Fund, 2301 South Union Avenue, Bakersfield, CA 93307 or the Independence Through GRACE Foundation, 1830 Truxtun Avenue, Suite 101, Bakersfield, CA 93301.
Milady Sy Quito, 47
Died November 11, 2020.
Independence Elementary School, South Gate, CA
Principal
Milady S. Quito was an educator, a community organizer, an activist, an aunt, a sister, a daughter, a confidante and a friend to many. At work and among her friends and family, she was known for both her lightheartedness and unreservedly no-nonsense approach in making things happen—whether it be an advocacy campaign for trafficked women, or planning her school’s program, or travel with old friends. Milady died on November 11, 2020, of the coronavirus. She was 47.
After growing up in San Diego as part of an immigrant, military family (her father, Lady, was in the Navy), Milady moved to LA to attend UCLA. Although she started as a science major, she fell in love with Political Science and involved in UCLA Samahang and then, focused her activism on fighting for Pilipino Studies to be included in the curriculum.
When years later, it finally became a course of study as a minor, she celebrated the victory but thought it was but one of many critical changes that needs to happen in the overall US educational system. This is part of the reason she became an educator.
Milady started as a parent coordinator and then became an elementary school teacher at LAUSD and worked hard to become a Principal at Independence Elementary School. Milady was devoted to her students. She shared with them, among others, one of the things she most cherished—books. When at a bookstore, which was often and for long hours, she bought books, mostly fiction, for the kids. She wanted them to have a novel, a non-textbook, that they could take home and savor, something they could be with, connect with.
Milady was an unapologetic feminist. She co-founded the UCLA chapter of Gabriela Network, a US-based, Philippine solidarity organization for women. In this work, she was also an educator, leading educational discussions, creating content and using her crafting skills to make issues come alive. Milady traveled to the Philippines often because of her political work where she lived on the picket line with women workers, studied the environmental damage after the oil spills in Iloilo and never hesitated to speak out and support the militant women’s movement. When she couldn’t go to the Philippines, she helped to send medical supplies, educational supplies and of course, books, to the activists and their families.
Milady was generous like that. Her generosity came naturally, without fuss. It was just a thing she did, a reflex. She was spontaneously generous with her time and energy, stepping up to leadership, whenever needed, in organizing timelines for social justice projects, in taking charge of materials and unwieldy logistics. She also lent the same kind of methodical, detailed process in coordinating itineraries for fun trips. One of the latest ones being to Croatia to visit the place where Game of Thrones was filmed. She did love to travel- her favorite cities were Paris and New York, which she tried to visit often.
When she came to New York City, for something related to her activist work and/or to visit friends, she made time for a Broadway show or two. Her friends often teased her that she secretly wanted to be a Broadway star. Milady had a powerful singing voice. She loved to sing. That was not a secret, though she always scoffed at any praise that came her way.
Before being diagnosed with Covid-19, less than a week before succumbing to the virus, Milady had dinner with a few old friends (all subsequently tested negative for Covid).
Though she loved her lechon kawali, pansit bihon, and everything Filipino, at this last dinner with friends, she shared a rib-eye steak and mussels in white wine sauce, and, for dessert, a confection of chocolate. She loved her chocolate.
Milady loved her family and she was able to spend Halloween with them. She was the ate of two sisters, Helene and Carol and Auntie to their five children, Derek and Leia Jolly, Lei Anh, Jet and Cruz Drake. She dressed up with them, cheered at their soccer games and read them bedtime stories. She had an annual pass to Disneyland, and was always up to take the kids especially to the new Star Wars land.
The week before her death, Milady was in a group text with the same old friends and others living hundreds of miles away. It had been the week of the U.S. elections. There was much bantering and outrageous humor, typical of such gatherings (real and virtual) among her friends. She did love to banter. No topic was too big or too small—politics, the perils of social media, Filipino telenovelas, K-pop, books.
Milady’s favorite book was “Le Petit Prince” (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. She had copies of it in multiple languages. She either bought them herself or were bought for her by friends whenever they traveled and stumbled on a copy. Her life seemed to have mirrored the themes in that novella: open-mindedness as that of a childlike mind, growth through external and internal explorations, relationships being at the core of what it means to be human.
In her Principal’s message to her school community for the school year, Milady cheered on the students, the parents, and the staff, making sure everyone stayed motivated and connected, that all students were given support to access distance learning. Her school’s theme this year is “Be Brave.” She said, “Never give up hope, no matter how dark things seem.” As with The Little Prince, Milady urged them to remember to look up at the stars, whatever that may represent for them—light, direction, grit, community, hope…
Milady was a Filipina American, born in Japan and grew up in California. She is survived by her mother, 2 sisters, 5 nieces and nephews, and countless friends, women whom she referred to as sisters, in the most intimate and deepest sense of the word, from California to New York, from the Philippines to Holland. (Contributed by Annalisa Enrile and Dorotea Mendoza)
Gerard Jarvis, 72
Died December 10, 2020.
Elliott Alternative Education Center, Modesto, CA
Adult Education & Technology
Gerard “Jerry” Jarvis, a computer and adult education teacher, as well as an adult education counselor at the Elliott Alternative Education Center high school, recently died from complications related to COVID-19 according to a post on the district’s Facebook page.
Jarvis, who was with Modesto City Schools for 32 years, all at Elliott, contracted COVID-19 outside of the work environment in mid-November, according to the post.
Jarvis was known for bringing doughnuts for all of his students and the entire staff on the last day of every quarter as well as visiting “every office/classroom” on a daily basis to ask how everyone was doing.
“Jerry was loved immensely by everyone, and he will be truly missed,” the post said. “His memory will live on, not only on the Elliott campus, but also in the entire Modesto community.”
Fellow Elliott teacher Fred Johnston said in a text message to The Bee on Sunday, “All of his students had good things to say about him. That is rare, especially at Elliott, but it shows everyone respected him and liked him.”
Johnston said he told a former student about Jarvis’ passing and the young man replied that Jarvis made a huge impression on him. “Jerry urged him to step out of his comfort zone and to write and apply for the local American Heritage essay contest” perhaps about a decade ago, Johnston said.
The student’s piece was selected as one of the top three essays, and “he wouldn’t have even attempted such a thing if Jerry hadn’t suggested it and encouraged him.”
Johnston also shared a recollection by Elliott data entry clerk Ashley Wheeler about meeting Jarvis when she was 11 or 12. Her grandfather took an adult education introductory computer class Jarvis taught, and “Jerry would give Ashley word searches and spreadsheets to put together so she would not bored while her grandfather was in class. Jerry cared about EVERYONE.”
Johnston said Jarvis was a role model for all people, not just teachers. “As I am writing this, another student reached out to me expressing his sorrow about the passing of Mr. Jarvis. That’s the kind of teacher Jerry was.”
Other friends and colleagues mourned Jarvis on Facebook. One fellow educator said she was “gutted” by the news of his death. “He was a gentleman and a good teacher, and even better person. Elliott will never be the same without him.”
Another Elliott teacher commented, “He was one of my favorite people on earth. I learned a lot from Jerry and will miss him dearly.”