Gloria Miletich Toedt 1926-2009
From Toedt.com Web site
Gloria Barbara Miletich Toedt, RN, 82, died of heart failure caused by aortic stenosis in San Antonio on February 16, 2009. She was born December 4, 1926 in Duluth, Minnesota, the fourth of nine children of Croatian immigrants Eli and Italika Miletich.
A photo album can be found here.
Growing up in Duluth's Raleigh Street neighborhood and graduating in Denfeld High School's class of 1944, Mom received her nurse's training at St. Luke's Hospital. After working as a labor and delivery nurse for Dr. Russell Moe in Duluth, she moved to Long Beach, CA and continued her career there. She lived with "The Girls," Fran Statioli and Olive McGolley, who were friends of her older brother Marty.
In Long Beach Mom met and soon married Dad, a fighter pilot who not long before had returned from the Korean War. They raised us four kids while moving frequently during Dad's Air Force career, which included (among other assignments) three years in France and several different duty stations in Texas, before retiring in San Antonio.
Mom was fiercely devoted to her family, both her immediate family and the extended Miletich- and Toedt clans. A long-time family joke was that Mom proved her love by cooking, and you proved yours by eating. During our three years in France, she learned many traditional French dishes from her friend Lucette DeMoget; those dishes became fixtures of the family cuisine. She collected cookbooks, and in recent years was delighted to learn how to look up recipes on the Internet. She enjoyed embroidery, knitting, crocheting, and sewing; when daughters Martha and Liz were young she made most of their clothes, and years later made baby bumpers and coverlets for her grandchildren.
Mom was always proud to be a nurse, though her full-time nursing career had ended when she and Dad moved away from Long Beach while she was pregnant with D.C. She was also proud of her decades of service as an American Red Cross volunteer at Wilford Hall USAF Hospital in San Antonio, where she worked in the OB-GYN clinic and the cardiac clinic. A 37-year breast cancer survivor, for many years she served as a Reach for Recovery volunteer aiding other breast-cancer patients. She was a longtime parishioner and parish-school volunteer at Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church in their neighborhood.
All her life Mom loved to sing; according to family legend, as a young nursing student she was told she should sing in nightclubs, but her revered big brother Steve, recently returned from WW II, said that nice girls didn't do that sort of thing, so she declined. She spoke several languages, including Croatian, French, and a bit of Italian and Spanish.
Mom often said that the best thing she ever did was to marry Dad, which he also said about her. During Mom's lengthy final illness, Dad was (and remains) weakened by leukemia, but that didn't keep him from attending to her every need — nor did her own illness stop her from constantly looking after him. We're convinced that they kept themselves going by sheer willpower because each insisted on continuing to take care of the other. They provided us kids with terrific role models of mutual devotion.
The whole family wants to thank the staff of Wilford Hall Medical Center, including especially Dr. Karin Hawkins (Major, USAF), for the care they gave Mom over the past several years. Any number of times, Mom told us how impressed she was, both personally and professionally, by Dr. Hawkins's skill and caring attitude.
Mom was predeceased by her parents; her brothers Stephen Miletich, Martin Miletich, and Nicholas Miletich; and her sisters Mary Miletich Spink and Goldie Miletich Lindsay. Her survivors include:
- her husband of 55 years, Lt. Col. Dell C. Toedt, USAF (ret.) of San Antonio;
- son D.C. Toedt III and wife Maretta of Houston, and their children Richard and Elizabeth;
- daughter Martha Toedt Williams and husband Charles of Houston, and their sons Alex and Matthew;
- daughter CDR Elizabeth Toedt, USN (ret.) and husband Robert Rudolph of Olympia, Washington, and their son Jordan;
- son David Toedt of San Antonio, daughter-in-law Rebecca Saenz Toedt of San Antonio, and their sons Robert, Thomas, and Stephen;
- brother and sister-in-law Eli and Carol Miletich Jr. of Duluth;
- brother and sister-in-law Thomas and Jo Miletich of Pascagoula, Mississippi;
- sister Eva Miletich Sharp and brother-in-law in all but name Tiny Cole of Dallas;
- in-laws Virginia Miletich of Minneapolis, Jack and Ann Tate of Newport Beach, CA, and Jim and Joanne Toedt Herendeen of El Paso; and
- numerous nieces and nephews.
At Mom's request, the immediate family will attend a funeral Mass at a date to be determined, with an extended-family party in Duluth when the weather warms up. Interment will be private.
Other obituaries:
- Duluth News Tribune (Mom's hometown paper)
- Marshalltown (Iowa) Times Republican (Dad's hometown paper)
