San Jose, California - Manuela “Baby” (pronounced Be-be) Trinidad Antonio Castillo, aged 65, died on Monday, February 16, 2015 at 2:05 am at Regional Medical Center in San Jose, California. She suffered from a major heart attack, which lead to kidney failure. Manuela was born May 18, 1949, in Caboluan, Santa Maria, Pangasinan, Philippines. She is the daughter of the late Eulogio Antonio and Consulacion Trinidad Antonio.
She was the 7th of 11 siblings: 1) Tolentino “Tony”, 2) Teodoro (passed in the Philippines at the age of 29 from a heart attack), 3) Igmedio “Joe”, 4) Euligio “Junior”, 5) Elimili “Mely”, 6) Catalino “Boy”, 7) Manuela “Baby”, 8) Manuel, 9) Garanilio (passed in his 30s in Hawaii), 10) Fidel, and 11) Araceli “Celing”.
She joins her late husband, Franklin D. Castillo (9/23/49 – 1/9/2015) of 42 years and leaves behind her daughters, Marifi, Melba, son Frank, youngest daughter, Mary, her five grandchildren, Isabella, Mason, Mialana (Melba’s children), Ezekiel, Cristiano (Marifi’s children) and her siblings.
Manuela graduated from Far East Technical High School then attended college at University of the East (UE) in Manila for 2 years, studying Liberal Arts to become a grade school teacher. However, she did not fully complete her studies.
She met Franklin while they were both students in college and soon married, both at the age of 22, on March 23rd, 1972 in Santa Maria, Pangasinan, Philippines and had an extravagant wedding. They were a handsome couple and had a promising future ahead of them.
Their first daughter, Marifi, was born in 1973 and second daughter, Melba, in 1975. The young family left the Philippines in 1978 to pursue the American dream and lived in Oahu, Hawaii for a couple of months. They then moved to Sunnyvale, California where technology was growing and good job opportunities were opened up. They stayed with other family members for a while until they decided to buy a home of their own. They moved to San Jose and had their son, Frank, in 1981 and their youngest daughter, Mary, in 1982. The family had lived in San Jose ever since.
During the early 80’s, Manuela found early success working in the electronics industry during Silicon Valley’s computer/technology boom. She worked for Synertek Incorporated as a final test operator in 1981. In the years following she worked for a few other electronics companies such as Amdahl, Solectron and Flextronics.
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, Manuela started to face many challenges. She was laid off and was constantly on the job hunt, even in recent years until her passing. There were issues within their marriage and finances and she started to gradually become more mentally unstable as the years gone by. Although Manuela and Franklin never divorced, they were separated and had not lived together for over 20 years. Due to the financial struggles, their home was foreclosed and the family was forced to move and go their separate ways.
Manuela stayed with her younger sister, Araceli “Celing” and their mother, Consulacion, after that ordeal. Araceli had a home in San Jose and offered her help and support to Manuela, along with a few other nieces and nephews during those trying times.
Her 4 children were living in a 2-bedroom apartment and moved around San Jose quite a bit. Her brother in-law, Liberato Castillo, helped her children purchase a mobile home in 1997 so that all of the kids could live together in a more manageable space. Manuela was finally reunited with her children in 2003 and moved into the mobile home with them.
Her children worked very hard, completing high school, working part time/full time jobs and attending college without their parent’s help or guidance. They were put through and challenged in many difficult life situations, but managed to stick close to one another, to persevere, and graduate and pay for their college tuition.
After college, Manuela’s children managed to get on their feet and find careers of their own. Marifi and Melba both got married and had children. Melba and her husband, Thomas J. Rios, purchased a home in 2006 in North San Jose, where Manuela lived the remainder of her life.
Although Manuela faced many challenges and hardships in her life, she did find comfort and happiness in hobbies and activities. She loved to shop. She was very stylish in her younger years and always loved to go to the malls and buy clothes, food, and simply people watch. She also loved to sing; her favorite song was “Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston and many other ballads from the 80’s. She used to write out all the lyrics and rehearse the song over and over again. And she loved watching game shows; her favorite show was Wheel of Fortune.
She always had to be out and about. Even as she got older, she never just stayed home and had a lazy type day. She was always going “pasyar”, which means “going out” in the Ilocano language. She liked walking to the parks, around the neighborhood, taking the bus going to the malls; she just liked being out in the sun. When she wasn’t wandering around, she would be out planting fruits, flowers or vegetables in the front or backyard - she loved to garden and had a green thumb just like her late husband.
Even when she no longer had to work anymore, she was constantly seeking employment. She was obsessed about working and earning income and she worked a few odd jobs doing janitorial work at the amusement park and fast food restaurants. When she was no longer working at these places, she took up recycling. Around the local neighborhood, she was known as the “recycle”, “cart” or “bag” lady and did appear to look homeless, although that was not the case. She took this on for the past 10 years as her “employment”. It kept her busy and made her a little extra cash. Most importantly she was always outside which she enjoyed.
Manuela wasn’t a very social person. She was very quiet and kept to herself most of the time unless someone would strike a conversation with her. However, if she did get comfortable, she would engage in very long conversation. She was typically a soft-spoken person and not confrontational, very shy. She wasn’t very expressive and she always seemed to be in her own thoughts. In a way she was in her own world and she had her own views on things. To most people, she would appear not to be “normal”. Although she was never officially or professionally diagnosed with any mental illness, it was obvious that there was a type of learning disability that could not be fully understood.
During her last years, she did whatever made her happy and lived her life the way she wanted. Despite the challenges her children faced living with her, there were always the funny moments they can laugh about and remember because deep down they really loved their mother and wish her only peace and happiness in paradise along side with their father.
There will be a funeral and graveside service for family, friends and loved ones at Lima Family Milpitas Fremont Mortuary, 48800 Warm Springs Blvd, Fremont, CA. Sunday, February 22nd, 2015 from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm.
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