Mary Christine Orozco

Mary Christine (Contreras) Orozco was born in Jerome, Arizona to Jesus and Josephine Contreras on August 29, 1925; she was 98 years old at the time of her passing on December 7, 2023. She was the eldest of their eight children and had two older half-brothers from her mother’s previous marriage.

She married Jose Orozco on February 14,1945 and they were married for 75 years until his passing. She and Jose lived in Isleton, Pittsburg, Brentwood, Antioch, Modesto, Ventura, San Diego, Coarsegold and finally back to Modesto; this was due to the company that Jose worked for transferring him to various cities.

They raised their four children in Pittsburg and Brentwood: Joe F., Alice Marie Castaneda, Lydia Suzanne Nicholson and Elizabeth Ann Orozco-Wittke.

Mary Christine took care of her family and did not work outside of the home. She was always involved in her children’s activities: volunteering with the PTA, teaching catechism, being a room mother, going on class trips, with the March of Dimes, helping their son with his paper route, to name a few. She and Jose designed and built a home in Brentwood. She always made her houses into homes filled with love and comfort. She always made her “honey do lists” that our father followed through on. She also loved to sew and made many of her own clothes and her children’s clothing.

She and Jose were politically active for many years with MAPA and actively campaigned for various candidates in Contra Costa County. She enjoyed working at the voting centers, fulfilling a patriotic duty. She attended with her husband Jose and their great friends former Congressman Jerome R. and Jill Waldie, Governor Edmund (Pat) Brown’s Inaugural Ball in 1959.

Mary Christine was a Knights of Columbus Lady throughout her adult life in the various cities that she and Jose lived in beginning in Pittsburg, California where our father was first sponsored to be a Knight of Columbus by one of Joe DiMaggio’s brothers. She was also active in the Pittsburg Catholic Daughters Association.

Mary and Jose enjoyed traveling and had been various times to Europe (Spain, France, England, Portugal, Germany, Italy, etc.), Hawaii and road trips in the western and middle states of the U.S.A., as well as in Mexico.

She is survived by their children Joe and Elizabeth. She was preceded in death by her husband Jose, daughters Alice and Lydia (Suzi), her parents and four of her siblings. She is also survived by grandchildren: Joe Orozco, Tom Orozco, Anjanette Alvarado, Katherine Ramirez, Autumn White, Alexandra (Alix) Gantt and Joey (JJ) Wittke. She is also survived by fifteen great-grandchildren, as well as two sisters and a brother: Hermelinda Rasey, Ernestine Trinidad, and Victor Contreras and many relatives in the USA, Mexico, and Europe.

Mary Christine was loved by her family and friends. She was a wonderful, caring and kind lady who will be greatly missed.

Funeral Arrangements are being made through Lakewood Memorial Park in Hughson, California.