Resident of Concord

November 12th, 2024, Jolene Mudgett, in hospice care at the home, where she had lived for over 60 years, chose to end her life with the help of the KHF hospice staff. It was a calm and peaceful completion to her long and happy life. Her children, grandchildren and great grandchild, Reed, spent the afternoon, preceding her death, with her. Her children, Dori Madera, David Mudgett &Dennis Mudgett &her husband of 67 years, Jack, were with her as she ended her life the next morning.

Jolene Louise Sandra was born 1937 in Berkeley, California and she lived with her parents, Molly and Joe Sandra, in Oakland until she was 6 and enjoyed being surrounded by a large family of aunts, uncles and cousins and with her two grandmothers. Both of her grandfathers had died following work related accidents. Her 4 grandparents were immigrants from Italy and Austria.

At 7, she, and her infant brother John, moved with their parents to Walnut Creek, at that time still a small, semi-rural town with orchards, fields and the still natural creek and Jolene remembered it as a happy place to live.

When she was 13, her family moved toone of the new tract homes in Pleasant Hill. She was a member of the first class in the opening of Pleasant hill High School and graduated with honors in the business training program.

At 18 she enrolled in Diablo Valley College and while there met her future husband, John (Jack) Mudgett. They were married November of 1956 when she was 19 and Jolene went on to complete her degree work, but chose to be a homemaker, household business manager and a mother rather than continue in a business career, a choice she never regretted.

Jolene was an athletic, high energy and hardworking mother, who was really fond of babies, especially those in her extended family. She liked being out of doors, gardening, camping, hiking, diving for abalone, backpacking the Sierras, walking the State beaches looking for agates, jade and petrified wood. Because she was married to a teacher, she was able to spend her summers enjoying these activities to the fullest.

She was a social, athletic and competitive person so bowling was a natural activity for the rest of the year and because she was a natural manager who liked organization, she enjoyed putting her business skills to use as a league secretary. She did enjoy that job!

Being a money person, Reno gambling trips &playing blackjack & video poker were challenges she enjoyed, but with the bonus of making them with her parents & taking the Bowling Tournament bus trips eating at buffets.

Gambling, traveling through the Sierras, and socializing, could life be any better with such bright spots!

A year and a half ago, Jolene was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer that had led to her father's premature death. She never used tobacco; never allowed its use in her home, and made apoint of avoiding people smoking, but her father was a construction welder, worked around asbestos, &brought the residue home on his clothing. Her lifelong fear of cancer was validated.

It necessitated partial removal of one lung. With the possibility of a slow, long recovery, there was the hope of a semi-normal life, even bowling was possible, but the cancer continued the invasion of her body with the new prognosis being for a life of months only with a steady decline in physical abilities requiring use of oxygen and medications. Jolene made the attempt to see it through. Her mind and memory were functioning well, allowing her to do crossword puzzles, watch TV, do her household bookkeeping and have company, but when the pain caused the use of increasing doses of morphine and which brought about the loss of even those simple pleasures, Jolene said, in her words: "This is not a life.

My mind isn't working. It hurts to eat and drink. Iwant it to end!" She chose to enter the hospice termination of life program.

Jolene had her family with her these last months, but, as she said, "I miss the company ofmyfriends and neighbors and the bowlers!"

We really miss her!