Stella Eve Eriksen

Stella was born Stephannie Stancheson in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. As an infant her family moved to Toronto, the former meeting place of Yukon fur traders and pioneers turned big city, the commercial center of Canada. Stella grew up in a large family with her eldest brother Bill and sister Olga and brothers Walter and Jack and younger sister Florence. Stella's father Michael was a foreman of a crew who built the Trans-Canadian railway. Her mother Lena was a business woman, amazing cook and was a life-long member and contributor to the Ukrainian expatriate community in Toronto. Lena ensured Stella also remained connected to that community by enrolling her in Ukrainian dance and music classes. As a result Stella was creative, playing mandolin in a mandolin orchestra, which were popular at the time. Later Stella participated in Ukrainian dance and calligraphy penmanship competitions in which she often was a standout and champion.

In her late teens during WW2 she worked in a weapons factory in support of Canadian, British and American troops engaged in the struggle to free Europe of fascism. She also learned to design and make her own clothes during this time. After the war Stella studied interior design and went to a trade school to become a beautician and hairdresser, suiting her sense of aesthetics and independence not to mention her striking beauty, which her friends compared to Vivian Leigh's character Scarlett O'Hara in the epic 1939 film Gone With the Wind. In fact as a 15/16 year old Stella played hooky on a number of occasions to go see the afternoon matineé showing of that ground breaking film. Stella found work at Eatons, the elegant fashion retailer in central Toronto and enjoyed life despite the difficult times and threatening overseas war.

Stella was inspired by her family's resilience during the Great Depression, particularly her mother Lena who as the family grew became Baba, the one person who drew everyone together with her warm generous spirit and hearty Ukrainian cooking. Stella also took inspiration from her siblings, her sisters Olga and Florence and brothers Bill, Walter (or Stanch as he was often fondly called) and Jack, through their close bond and self sacrifice contributing to the community where they lived as their mother did.

Stella married at 30, later than most women at the time, determined to find the right guy who would compliment her spirit. The story of how she met her husband of 59 years almost on a fluke is family legend. It begins on a cold February day when Stella decides on short notice to join some girlfriends who were going to a Valentines party north of the city put on by the local Danish social club. So the story goes it came down to the last dance after Stella had already paired up with another guy with whom she had spent most of the evening, when a handsome Dane approached her and asked her to dance. Leif was dashing to be sure, stylishly dressed and a smart engineer too, but what won the evening was a '38 Packard sedan. That offer of a ride convinced Stella and her friends that they could get home at a decent hour without having to call a cab, which on that late cold February night would have been challenging to summon at such a distance.

Strategically Leif dropped off the other passengers including Stella's date before making their way towards Stella's family home, where her mother waited anxiously. As if that weren't enough fate intervened again causing a tire on the Packard to blow out. As a result Leif and Stella stayed out late for a impromptu nightcap while waiting for the tire to be repaired. This bad luck turned out to be good fortune allowing the two talk late into the wee hours and, despite getting Stella in trouble with her mother, lit a spark. Perhaps more pragmatically it won Leif a second date, dinner at Stella's home where he was given a chance to redeem himself with Stella's mom. Above all else Baba was most impressed with Leif's appetite, determining he must be a good worker. Their romance blossomed quickly and led to wedding bells a mere 6 months later!

Again by good fortune it would seem, their marriage occurred just as Leif's application for immigration to the US was approved after working in Michigan and Ohio in the US automotive industry where he earned excellent references. The newlyweds had honeymoon plans and the doors to the US had just swung open wide. Stella and Leif took this as a sign they should head south into the US for a longer honeymoon than anticipated. They used this opportunity to explore the Western US which fascinated them both, but the plan was still to return to Toronto after their adventure.

After following famed Route 66 through the rugged but beautiful western wilderness and running low on honeymoon travel funds, they ended up in Seattle, the Pacific Northwest's largest city, where Leif suspected good work in aerospace manufacturing could be had. But as fate would have it the weather didn't cooperate. After days of showers and no firm offers of employment they decided to pack up and head south to Portland then similarly to San Francisco. But still bad weather and lukewarm opportunity plagued them. They drove on further south down the fabled Highway 1 through what would become one of their favorite spots, Big Sur. They were in love, footloose and fancy free and true to their spirits, full of boundless optimism. Southern California was on the horizon although thoughts of returning to Toronto remained. But the City of Angels and fate conspired when they arrived in Los Angeles and both Leif and Stella found work. They rented a cozy hillside apartment in the Echo Park neighborhood and started their dream life in what must have seemed like paradise, non-stop perfectly warm sunshine basking endless beaches, the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada range, dazzling sunsets over the Pacific at Santa Monica and sparkling starlit evenings along the glamorous boulevards and brand new freeways which attracted millions to the home of the Hollywood film industry and this rapidly emerging mid-century megalopolis.

Stella worked at a downtown bank while Leif landed a job at General Dynamics, one of the Southland's major military contractors, which eventually led to an assignment on a top secret project to build recording equipment for NASA's upcoming Apollo lunar space missions. After getting a toehold in America Stella and Leif took a vacation, a sort of second honeymoon traveling to Europe to meet Leif's parents and to experience as a couple some of the wonderful places Leif knew from his travels after the war. During this period Stella and Leif were trying to have a child but after experiencing a miscarriage it took some time before they eventually had their first full term pregnancy.

Stella had given up her job after being mugged one evening returning home and her focus was now on giving birth to their first healthy child. Leif too was focused on her success and advocated a healthy lifestyle for their future. But tragically their first child, a boy named Daniel, was stillborn after complications during the birthing process. This was devastating but they didn't let this misfortune descend into negativity, but instead the couple drew closer to each other. Eventually they tried again resulting in the successful birth of a healthy baby boy they named Leif Walter after his father and Stella's brother.

With their family growing it was time to get a proper home, which led them to Glendora, promoted as the Pride of the Foothills at the northeastern edge of the San Gabriel Valley, home to once vast citrus orchards at the foot of the occasionally snow-capped Mount Baldy, the 4200 foot peak that on a clear day dominates LA's northern horizon. Leif Jr was almost 2 years old when, just before the election of John F. Kennedy, Stella gave birth to her second and last child, Paul before "breaking the mold."

Stella took to motherhood and raising a family her sense of complete devotion and style. The young boys were always well fed, safe and smartly dressed, often in matching outfits. The couple instilled in their boys a fierce sense of optimism, balance and self-determination, having experienced with their parents the physical stamina and mental fortitude required to survive the Great Depression and two world wars. Despite ups and downs the boys always had what they needed, were loved and grew through adolescence happy.

Just as Leif Jr was was starting school Stella and Leif took another bold step when they decided to pack it all in and travel the globe for a year, both to connect with family on three continents and scratch an itch to see more of the world together. Leif had also applied for and received approval to work and immigrate to Australia where his sister Jytte and her husband Frank lived by the seaside in Sydney after immigrating from Denmark some years earlier. They fell in love with the country fondly referred to as
Downunder, exploring its gorgeous expanses including an adventure deep into the heart of the outback where the family camped under the spectacular Milky Way and climbed Ayers Rock, the present day sacred Aboriginal site called Uluru. They would have stayed in Sydney had it not been for the lack of good employment opportunities and depressed work ethic.

So with Stella and Leif at the helm the Eriksen explorers set sail for new ports of call and perhaps another place to put down their anchor. This epic ocean and overland voyage would take them the rest of the way around the globe covering thousands of miles ocean in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Cannel and Mediterranean eventually landing in Greece. From there they took the railroad through Eastern and Central Europe ultimately pulling into Copenhagen where Leif's parents and family awaited their arrival. This was one of the few precious opportunities Stella and her children had to connect with Leif's side of the extended family. Despite the onset of winter it was sweet for all concerned, particularly Leif's father Harold, his mother Kate and her second husband Sven.

Within a couple of months it was off to the great blue yonder flying to Toronto to spend some time with Stella's side of the family and introduce the boys to their large extended Canadian family. Ultimately they returned to their home in the LA suburbs. Needless to say circumnavigating the globe for a year was an enriching experience if not a little overwhelming, but the boys got literally a world class education by the time they finished what would have been first grade and kindergarten respectively. Stella and Leif would continue making their lives an adventure, a passion of theirs for the rest of their lives.