She was a lifelong resident of Vallejo, attended St. Vincent Grammar and High School a few blocks from her home, graduating in 1945. She married Jim Ley and had three children, Diane, Suzanne, and Stephen. Jim and Juanita divorced in 1968.
Diane Ley remembers her mother as having great perseverance:
After my siblings and I had been in school awhile, Mom decided
to get a part-time job. This was in the
early 60s when most women’s job opportunities were limited to how many words
they could type per minute. At her first
job interview, she flunked her typing test. But she did not let that deter her. She came home and practiced and practiced on
an old manual typewriter until she reached the requisite 45 words per minute. Then she got a job.
A few years later, she decided she needed an additional part-time job. She saw an ad for an instructor at the old Kentwig Health Club, here in Vallejo. She had no experience in either teaching a class, or did she know the types of exercises you would do in a gym. She went to the library, checked out books on fitness, and practiced until she mastered the art of a workout. She not only got the job, but she became one of their most popular instructors.[1]
Juanita later began full-time work at Mare Island. She started in the library and then moved to the Recreation Department. It was at Mare Island that she met Jim Gass. Jim was the Athletic Director at Mare Island, and this is the way he described meeting Juanita:
Later that month, the Director of the Special Services hired an Assistant Librarian. Her name was Juanita Ley. She was introduced to the staff. When she got to my desk, I was seated. I looked up and saw this beautiful face smiling at me. I couldn’t stand up because my legs were frozen, and I thought I was having a mild stroke. I began checking books out of the library at a frenzied pace. One day she said, “You’re certainly checking out a lot of books.” I replied, “It’s not the books I’m checking out.” She blushed and our romance began.[2]
Jim and Juanita were married in 1970 and purchased a home in Vallejo on Illinois Street. Juanita (also known as Nita) worked at Mare Island for 22 years. She enjoyed reading and traveling especially after they both retired.
Juanita was also known for
her thoughtfulness and generosity. Diane
Ley, her daughter, relayed an example of her generosity. A friend of her brother was going to be
married, but they didn’t have much money, so Juanita and Jim told them to use a
family-owned cabin in Lake County for their honeymoon. When they arrived there and opened the door,
there were flowers, food, and gifts for them inside.[3]
Jim & Juanita Gass - on vacation
I didn’t know Juanita well when I was young, because there was a great age difference, although our birth dates (month & day) were one day apart. She probably knew me as a shy young cousin who came along on family gatherings. But later in life when we visited California from the east coast, we scheduled family lunches together. She had a great sense of humor, and I was always amazed at how much she knew about the Coronado family and especially the family secrets! She would help me identify the family and non-family members in the photos we shared.
I last saw Juanita in December 2019 when we visited the Residential Care Home where she and Jim lived. She was still her perky self and told me more family secrets, which I will continue to share in this blog. I am certainly missing her.
