Vida Tukua, 1920-2014

Published 9:56 am Monday, August 25, 2014

Funeral services for Vida B. Tukua will be at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Trinity Lutheran Church in New Richland. The Rev. Charles Espe will officiate. Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the church. Interment will take place at St. Peter’s Cemetery in New Richland. Friedrich Funeral Home in New Richland is in charge of arrangements.

Vida passed away Aug. 6, 2014, at A&D Residential Care in Antioch, Calif. She was 93.

Vida was born Aug. 9, 1920, to Peter and Bertha (Siffing) Hansen in New Richland. Vida grew up in New Richland and graduated high school in 1938. Following her schooling, she moved to follow Gilman Tukua to California where he was stationed before the war. The couple married on June 8, 1942, in Carson City, Nev. When her husband returned from the war, they moved to different areas of the country until returning back to California.

She was a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in New Richland, St. Olaf Lutheran Church in Garden Grove, Calif., and Red Hill Lutheran Church in Tustin, Calif. Religion was very important to Vida. Vida was a stay at home mother, taking care of her two sons. She always greeted the boys after school with a fresh batch of cookies, kept the house very clean and always took her family to church on Sundays. Family was the most important thing to Vida. She was very close to her siblings while she was growing up and was a wonderful mother and grandmother to all of her family.

Vida is preceded in death by her husband, Gilman; parents Peter (Bertha) Hansen; siblings Orvin, Clayton and LuDell Hansen; and grandparents Christian (Mary) Hansen and Henry (Hattie) Siffing.

She is survived by her two sons, Jule (Jerri) Tukua and Dennis (Karen) Tukua; grandchildren Aaron Tukua, Sarah Price, Rebecca Tukua and John David Ryan; great-grandchildren Anna Marie Price and Kylie Brooke Ryan; as well as many other loving relatives and friends.