Barbara Sullivan passed away at her home in San Diego’s Otay Mesa on Sunday, November 9, 2014. She was born Barbara Tolvaysh on April 12, 1943 in Cook County Chicago’s Norwegian-American Hospital to Mathilda Mader and Lawrence Anthony Tolvaysh, both of 4436 W. Cortez St, Chicago, Illinois. She grew up in a house full of relatives, including her grandparents and 6 or 7 aunts & uncles in an ethnic neighborhood on the near West side. Both of Barbara’s parents were working class people who saved their money to help keep Barbara and her sister Anita in parochial schools. Barbara’s brother Lawrence is the youngest in the family and lives in Hoffman Estates, Illinois with his wife Janis. Mathilda was German-American and Lawrence was Lithuanian-American. Barbara was baptized in St. Celestine Church as an infant in May of 1943. She was later confirmed in her faith and given her first communion.
Barbara attended 12 years of Catholic School, and graduated 18th of 302 students in 1961 from Alvernia High School in Chicago. Alvernia was an all-girls high school and she was the top business student. Barbara married Arthur Stullich of Milwaukee in 1966 and together they had two sons, Lawrence A. Stullich of Carlsbad, CA and James P. Stullich of La Mesa. Arthur died in May of 2012 in Illinois.
Barbara and John Sullivan met at Allied Van Lines, Broadview, Illinois in 1985, and after working together for a year went on their first date. John had two daughters by a previous marriage, Sally Schilling Crosby of McPherson, Kansas, and Erin C. Schilling Dacy of Lacey, Washington. With a large blended family of teenagers, John & Barbara moved from Chicago to San Diego shortly after their 1986 marriage. They lived for 16 years in a condo in Mission Beach, then 9 years in El Cajon, and the last two years in Ocean Bluffs Mobile Home Estates retirement community in the Otay Mesa area of San Diego’s South Bay.
Barbara graduated with honors from Roosevelt University in Chicago and later received her Master of Business Administration with honors from the University of Redlands in Redlands, CA. She also attended one year of law school at the USD School of Law. All of her working career was spent in the computer science field, and she worked her way up from being a machine operator with punch cards to a Senior Programmer Analyst utilizing Lotus Notes as a systems analyst for IBM PC Corporation in Somers, New York and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Barbara also consulted for Ryder Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan and North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, CA for six years. She stopped working in 2001 after a workers compensation injury at North Island NAS.
Barbara’s son Larry and his wife Katey Pakhamova Stullich have two children, Madelyn and Nicholas, and they live in Carlsbad, CA. Barbara’s son James and his wife Cindy Williams Stullich have two children, George and Ivy, and they live in La Mesa, CA Both sets of grandchildren visited their grandmother Barbara shortly before her passing.
Both Barbara and John spent much of their working lives in San Diego, and even when Barbara worked in New York, North Carolina, and Michigan, they retained their home in San Diego where she returned on weekends whenever possible. Barbara’s father Lawrence lived with the Sullivan’s for several years. Barbara remained lifelong friends with two classmates from her kindergarten class, Janet Naples Cork of Elgin, Illinois and Judy Naples Thompson of Niles, Illinois. They were friends for over 65 years.
Services are pending at Erickson-Anderson Funeral Home in La Mesa, CA, on December 6. In lieu of flowers, please support American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the East County Salvation Army Center, where Barbara volunteered before her health declined.
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