Winona Mathews

In loving memory of Winona Rosenburg Mathews, December 3, 1923 – July 29, 2021.

Nona will be remembered by all who knew and loved her for her consistent positive outlook. Even two days before her death, she insisted she was “perfectly healthy!”

Nona lived her life on an even keel, with moderation as her natural inclination. Nona loved language, was a wordsmith, and volunteered for more than 30 years as a tutor of English conversation and American social mores for international graduate students at UCSD.

She had wide interests and was an inveterate reader. Right up to her last year of life, Nona kept up with the newspapers, read The New Yorker, and loved reading novels and mysteries. She was easily pleased by the details of everyday life, watching the ocean and view out her window, eating chocolate, identifying birds and plants, completing a crossword puzzle, having a small glass of white wine with an ice cube in it, and chatting with family. She travelled widely, was interested in music, arts, anthropology and after retirement, active in OSHER, a lifelong learning center.

Throughout her life, Nona spoke with pride about being a Radcliffe graduate. Like many women of her generation, she stayed home to raise four kids, but then in her early 50’s developed a professional career, going back to school twice for Masters’ Degrees in Counselling and Public Health. She worked as a social worker and counselor in Ann Arbor from 1970–73, then shifted careers and ran the career counselling center for the University of Michigan School of Public Health until her retirement in 1981.

Nona was always civic minded, active in AAUW for years, and supported Common Cause, ACLU, Sierra Club, Care, and other groups dedicated to creating a better, more equitable world.

A Michigan native, Nona grew up in Jackson, Michigan, moved to Ann Arbor, then upon retirement moved to La Jolla, California, which she loved like a native.

With a life spanning 97 and a half years, Nona saw lots of changes, including evolving roles and expectations of women, changing social climates and exponential technological change. She dealt with these changes - including the inevitable hard times - pragmatically and with grace.

Nona is survived by her sister, Barbara Stanton, children and spouses Rick and Betsy Ilfeld, Kathryn Stillings, Marty Ronish, and Ellen Ilfeld and Judith Evans, as well as stepchildren and their spouses, Ron and Janis Mathews, Bob and Catherine Mathews, and Susan Mathews, grandchildren Mark and Bonnie Ronish and Kyle and Ali Mathews, great-grandchildren Althea and Helena Ronish, and multiple nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by her second husband, Kenneth Mathews and by her first husband and father of her children, Bob Ilfeld.

Donations in Nona's name can be made to Friends of the International Center at UCSD (https://global.ucsd.edu/intl-community-support/friends/index.html).