Point Reyes Light - December 18, 2003
Bolinas' Aspasia Downey, 82, dies of natural causes
Aspasia Vasilatos Downey died of natural causes on Sunday Dec. 7, in Bolinas, California. She was 82.
A warm, generous, loving person with a wonderful sense of humor, Aspasia was a native San Franciscan, daughter of Sophia Chrisoverges of Marmara, Greece, and Anthony Vasilatos of Kephalonia, Greece.
Love of all music
Mrs. Downey was a 1939 graduate of Washington High School, in San Francisco. She studied at San Francisco City College, and worked in the stocks and bonds business prior to marriage.
She also worked for the Lake Merced Golf & Country Club, and retired after 23 years of civil service in the San Francisco Juvenile Court in the Juvenile Hall and Probation Departments.
Mrs. Downey was very musical, and had a lifelong love of all music, singing and playing both piano and accordion beautifully. She was an avid salmon and fresh water fisher, snagging an award-winning 36-pound Schenley salmon in 1965.
Mrs. Downey and her husband, Richard Downey, purchased a "vacation" home in Bolinas in 1957, and she has lived there full time since 1991.
She always referred to this home as her "rustic little cabin by the sea."
She was a long-time member of the Bolinas Rod & Boat Club. Mrs. Downey was a world traveler and spoke Greek fluently with many of the people she met on her travels abroad.
She has also traveled the entire United States, Canada, and Mexico. Mrs. Downey was a warmly gregarious person who loved to entertain as well, and she opened her heart and her home to all she met, all over the world.
Raised three children
Mrs. Downey married in 1950, and raised three children in San Francisco by herself after the early and untimely death of her beloved husband in 1960.
She is survived by her three children, Denise, John, and Timothy; their partners, Susan Lefever, Birgit Downey, and Teri Downey; her grandchildren, Ryan, Jackson, and Yana; and her lifelong friend and companion of 61 years, Noel Christian of Sausalito.
She had many lovely extended family members and friends whose lives she enriched, and vice versa.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to the West Marin Senior Services Center at PO Box 791, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956, the Bolinas Community Firehouse and Clinic at PO Box 126, Bolinas, CA 94924, or to your favorite charity, in her name.
An internment service will be held at the Bolinas Cemetery, on a date to be announced, in the spring of 2004. The traditional Greek Trisagion memorial service was held on Saturday, Dec. 13, in the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church.