Back in the mid-90s (on the 30^th anniversary of the Summer of Love), my late husband, legal journalist Tim Robinson and I moved to San Francisco where we rented an apartment in an elegant townhouse adjoining Golden Gate Park until the end of 2002.  Our landlords were Professor H. Maurice Tseng and his wife Gloria, a manager at Bank of America. Sadly, I got news recently that Gloria had passed away and I wanted to share why her loss weighed so heavily on me, as I remembered her talent for transcending cultures and spreading love.

Gloria was from Guayaquil, Ecuador in South America and had met and married the son of a Chinese diplomat in New York City, where she worked as a Spanish translator and editor for Merck.  The couple moved to San Francisco in 1962 with two small boys – David and Steven – who from birth were immersed in both cultures.  Their father taught Chinese language and literature at a local university, while Gloria graduated from college with a BA in business administration, starting a 30 year career in management at Bank of America — often focused on her bank’s community outreach programs targeting Chinese, Hispanic, and other immigrants.

I was a communications consultant and eagerly invited Gloria — who knew so much about the city and its immigrant communities — to join my networking organization, Women in Business.  It gave us both further opportunities to bond with other business leaders from many backgrounds, as well as create new strategies for advancing women in area businesses.  We often got to laugh together, especially important after the death of her husband about a year after we moved in.

During the years in SF, we shared recipes and cookouts with the Tsengs and their neighbors, as well as gospel music that Tim played on his old Story and Clark upright piano, inspired by Baptist missionaries living next door (I still am in touch with Linda and Eric Bergquist).  I was often back in San Francisco over the years and Gloria insisted that I stay at her home and  cooked delicious ethnic dishes for me.  I will always miss this extraordinary business and community leader, her family and that elegant townhouse that felt like a second home.