Selfa Gallardo

Selfa Gallardo was born on the 16th of May, 1944 in Santiago, Chile to an architect & engineer, Hector Gallardo Lopez and a homemaker, Rosalia Canales Adasme. An only child well into adulthood she was the apple of her father's eye as much as he was her biggest hero.

She took her last name's meaning to heart and lived her life with "gallardo" or courage. She fought through decades of illness and medical issues even surviving Covid19 before vaccinations were available until her body finally had too much, even for her.

She was a trained accountant and bookkeeper allowing her to work for one of the largest civil engineering firms in the country as well as one of the largest and most prestigious winemakers in Chile.

She would marry Alfredo Alfonso Hernandez, her husband of 18 years and would bear two daughters, Ximena and Sandra. In 1979 the family made the difficult decision to emigrate to the United States and start a new life where she would have her third child, Alfredo Jr.

Her children were her biggest pride and joy, as each became highly successful in their professional careers of academia, public administration and the political arena respectively. Their success wouldn't be possible without the immense sacrifices she made to provide the best possible education available and the work ethic she instilled in them, where failure was not an option, and the words "I can't do" were not allowed in their vocabulary.

Selfa had a very eclectic taste in music listing Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti, Bill Haley and Garth Brooks as her favorites. She was a diehard New York Yankees fan, much to the chagrin of her son, but could watch any baseball-game all-day on TV so long as they didn't get in the way of her telenovelas. She loved action movies, especially any James Bond, Van Damme or Chuck Norris movie. She loved science fiction and fantasy movies, particularly Star Trek, Dune, Lord of the Rings and Outlander.

She collected colorful folding fans, elephants, snow globes and Christmas decorations creating elaborate and detailed holiday villages around her home as well as having an impressive nutcracker collection; Christmas being her favorite holiday. She loved going to the beach, often saying she loved the smell and sound of the waves crashing on the shore especially when they crashed on large rocks.

Despite loving her adopted country and always saying one of her proudest moments was being sworn-in as a U.S. citizen, she remained immensely patriotic to her homeland, Chile, and would talk about it to anybody that would listen.

While she did not consider herself particularly religious, she was raised Catholic and had an immense, almost fierce devotion to the Virgin Mary who she prayed to every night asking her to watch over and protect her entire family.

She is survived by her mother, Rosalia Adasme who is 99 years old, her half-sister Claudia Gallardo who still resides in Chile, her three children, Ximena, Sandra and Alfredo, her two son-in-laws Eduardo and Martin whom she loved as her own, her three grandchildren, Carly, Jacob and Cory and her two cats, Anakin and Attila who she may have loved more than life itself.

She was able to spend her final days with her children and is now finally reunited with her father who she adored very much and longed for years to be reunited with.

She is finally at peace.