Ramona K. Esphahanian had an interesting life. A child of both the Great Depression and the dust bowl, she was made of sturdy stuff. Her life began on a farm in the Shattuck, Oklahoma area, near the panhandles of both Oklahoma and Texas. She got to see thousands of falling stars and once even the northern lights when they traveled unusually far south. She had a grandmother who participated in the Oklahoma land rush. Her parents set a solid example for their six children. They were hard working, playful, feisty, generous and proud. Ramona recalled her childhood as happy and her family as close.
When she was eighteen the infamous Woodward, Oklahoma tornado in April 1947 made a direct hit on their farmhouse and changed her life forever. Her mother and youngest brother were killed and her father terribly injured. The family moved to town to heal and she helped her father with the care of a younger brother and sister. During that time she worked as a telephone operator, but when her father remarried she stepped bravely out of Shattuck into a bigger world. She got a clerk typist job in Dumas, Texas, lived on Campbell's soup, and bought herself a Studebaker.
A job with the department of agriculture moved her around north-central Texas from Dumas to Lubbock to Pampa and eventually to Mt. Pleasant. There she met her husband, Nasser “Ace” Esphahanian, a young man from Persia who came to the U.S. in 1947 to go to engineering college and who remained to work in the pipeline and refinery business. They were from different worlds, but very much of similar minds and goals. They married in 1953. In 1956 her world got bigger when they moved to Houston and she had their first child, a boy they named Cyrus. They settled into life as a young couple and bought their first house in the then-outlying Houston suburb of Spring Branch. Their second child, a daughter named Vanita, arrived in 1963. As a wife, Ramona was a true helpmate, a steady partner who never dropped the ball. She was a loving, devoted and creative mother and she made the house a home, and the yard a garden.
The 1970s came and her world grew again in a way she could never have imagined: Ace was offered a job in Tehran and the family moved to Iran. With Ace traveling for work all the time, alone Ramona established a functioning household for her family in a foreign land. She did not speak the language, but she managed to settle herself and her children into a new normal, and got to know her husband’s family.
Overseas her love of ancient history blossomed. She explored the bazaar, visited ancient Persian archeological sites, and collected bits and pieces of history. She wanted the family to travel and Ace helped make it happen. Over her lifetime the she got to see: Egypt, India, Thailand, Nepal, Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, England, Spain, Turkey, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Japan, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Venice, Cancun and Cozumel. She traveled on the QEII ocean liner and the Orient Express passenger train. She made herself and her family bigger by making the world smaller through familiarity.
Seven years overseas was enough and Ramona set in motion the transition back to The States. This was fortunate as the devastating Iranian Revolution occurred not long after. With Cy in college and Ace still traveling with work, she chose to settled in Dallas were she could help nurse her younger sister who had cancer. A couple of years later the family resettled in Houston. She empty-nested in 1982 when Vanita left for college. The year 1983 brought Cy’s marriage to Jackie, and Ramona and Ace became grandparents in 1988 with the birth of Cy’s son, Jackson. They loved being grandparents and traveled often to Denver, Colorado for visits. In 1989 Ramona and Ace gained a son-in-law when Vanita married Jeff.
In the early 1990s Ace was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and together he and Ramona embarked on enduring the medical gauntlet a severe illness forces upon people. In 1994 Cy married Jeanne, and Ace was gifted with a match and he received a lung transplant. Ramona was by him the whole time, never complaining about the toll being a caregiver takes on a person. They became grandparents again in 1995 with the birth of Cy and Jeanne's daughter, Mina.
Brutal 1996 dealt her the blow of her husband's death. Recovery from the loss of someone as amazing as Ace would never be fully complete, but being no stranger to profound loss she survived and healed as much as one does heal. The birth of Vanita and Jeff’s son Max helped with that healing as she became a grandmother again in 1999. Living in the same city as them, she helped with and got to enjoy his childhood.
The millennium changed and progressed, and her life was made good by visits with Cy’s family in Colorado and time spent with Vanita’s family in Houston. Her life was quiet and she liked it that way. She worked in her garden and stayed close with her sister Betty and brother Floyd.
Her final years saw the encroachment of illness, which at first was tolerable. She moved in with Vanita’s family much to the pleasure of all. Her final year saw several medical conditions grip harder and they finally became nearly intolerable. When she passed she was ready and at peace, content with the life she had been given. When the end came she was at home and comfortable, with family in the room.
Ramona was preceded in death by her mother Stella Kolander and youngest brother Doug Kolander, her brother Hank Kolander, her younger sister LaNita Kolander, her stillborn grandchild Cy’s daughter Nicole, her father Henry Kolander, her husband Ace Esphahanian, and her step-mother Norma Kolander, as well as numerous in-laws and friends.
Ramona is survived by her sister Betty Edgington, her brother Floyd Kolander and his wife Delia, step-sister Sonya Bergschneider and her husband Paul, her son Cyrus Esphahanian and his wife Jeanne Reneau, her daughter Vanita Esphahanian and her husband Jeff Sechelski, her grandchildren Jackson Esphahanian, Mina Esphahanian, and Max Sechelski, along with nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews.
She requested that there be no funeral service.
Ramona lived a good life. She loved and was loved in return, and she will be profoundly missed.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to: TWRC Wildlife Center, 10801 Hammerly Blvd., #200, Houston, TX 77043
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