Lydia Urgena Camanga

Dr. Lydia Urgena Camanga, 94, died on August 1, 2021 peacefully at home surrounded by family. She was born on March 27, 1927 in Majayjay, Laguna, Philippines, daughter of Adriano and Teofila (Brioso) Urgena. She was widowed after 63 years of marriage to her sweetheart, Perfecto Camanga in 2019.

Lydia graduated from the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines School of Medicine in 1952. She had a promising and successful Family Medicine and Hospitalist practice in the Philippines until she immigrated to the US in 1973 and established their residence in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 50, after completing all the qualifying examinations and skills to practice medicine in the US, she started her Internal Medicine Internship Training at Grant Hospital, Chicago, Illinois.  After her Training, she took on a position as the Medical Director of a Health Clinic in Porterville, CA. She also worked at the Coalinga State Prison Clinic and Fresno Health Clinic. After 43 years of a successful and rewarding medical practice, she retired with her husband and moved to Torrance, CA in 1995 to be closer to her growing family.

In addition to her parents and her husband, she is predeceased by an infant child, Maria Heloise. Lydia is survived by 3 daughters, Marissa (Val Reyes), Necy (Flonio Sumait) and Rumela Camanga; 2 sons, Perry (Daisy Delos Reyes+) and Tristan Camanga; 8 grandchildren, Vincent Reyes (Danielle Goeden), Marilu Reyes (Kevin Dehesa), Michael Reyes, Nicole Sumait (Brian McPhail), Adam Sumait (Kohaku Flynn), Tiffany, Alexis and Andrew Camanga and 2 great grandchildren Theodorus Rex Reyes Dehesa and Remy Marguerite Goeden Reyes. She is also survived by 3 brothers, Adriano Urgena, Percival Urgena (Consolascion Leynes) and Dr. Regino Urgena (Trudy Stefanko), and many nieces, nephews, cousins from the Philippines, Arizona, Chicago, Texas, Washington, DC, Virginia, California, France, Canada, and the UK.

Lydia is a promoter of the Miraculous Medal Society in which she enrolled and maintained a list of her family, friends and acquaintances. She was a past Regent of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas, Court St. Catherine where she encouraged her daughters to join. She was very much interested in starting the youth program during her term so her granddaughters could be members too. She was also active in the Legion of Mary and a Eucharistic Minister at Nativity Catholic Church in Torrance in her younger years. Lydia belonged and was an active rosary group member in the cities she lived and was instrumental in establishing a new rosary group in Coalinga, CA which continued after she left. She is a member of the Militia Immaculata founded by St Maximillian Kolbe. She was happy and grateful to have the opportunity to make pilgrimages to several religious sites. Professionally, she has been an active member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and served as Secretary for several terms to the Philippine Academy of Family Physicians. She received the PAAFP Physician of the Year award in 2000. She has been well admired and respected by her colleagues that when she moved to the US, she was invited, welcomed and sought after by the nurses and physicians whom she had mentored and worked with in the Philippines.

Her family and friends will remember Lydia Camanga as a loving, devoted mother, Lola, great Lola, sister, cousin, aunt and friend who quietly and attentively watched, nurtured, and shared her deep love of family and faith. She showed us how good God is and how one must strive and make the effort to acquire that which is best in all aspects of life; according to and in union with God who provides and loves us.

We thank and love you, mom, for all that we have received from your life. May you now rest in peace, and we look forward to being united again with you in the Heavenly Kingdom.