Dates
Leonor Seibert passed away from natural causes on August 22, 2016 in San Angelo, Texas. She was 86 years old. Leonor was born on June 25, 1930 in La Rosita, Texas to Roman & Irene Alaniz. The eldest of four children, she grew up and attended school in San Diego, Texas. She graduated from San Diego High School as her senior class valedictorian and, after graduation, attended both Texas A&I University in Kingsville, Texas and then the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. Soon after, in 1951, she married her high school sweetheart, Roberto Gonzalez, with whom she had eight children. She spent the next several decades caring for those children and what a wonderful job she did! She raised three physicians (Fernando, Roberto Jr. and Hector), two school teachers (Gloria Estella & Annette), one CPA (Irene Inez) and two gifted artists and wonderful stay at home moms (Yolanda & Leonor Isabelle). With her youngest child still in high school, Leonor decided to return to college. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Texas in Arlington and went on to earn her Master’s in Special Education and Speech Pathology from the University of North Texas in Denton. She worked for many years in the Dallas Independent School District as one of the very few bilingual speech pathologists in the district. She was based at Sunset High School and serviced all of the junior high and elementary schools feeding into Sunset. As you can imagine, she was very busy.
After her marriage to Roberto ended, she met & married Walter Seibert from Rockwall. She had always been a devout Catholic. With Walter, her love of Christ & the church lead her to serve as a deacon for Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Rockwall. She and Walter actively supported various church ministries but their passion was for the church food bank. During this time, her family continued to grow as the children married and raised families of their own. She was blessed with seventeen grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Nana, as she was known by the grandkids, spent many weeks over the summer hosting her granddaughters in her home and many hours attending sporting events all around the DFW Metroplex. Holidays were always a loving, rambunctious and very loud affair at Nana’s. After Walter died in 2003, her health began to decline and she spent her time in retirement villages in Coppell and Grand Prairie and then moved to San Angelo in January of 2014.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Irene & Roman, her husband’s Roberto & Walter, two daughters, Leonor Isabelle Robertson & Yolanda Foreman and her grandson Marc Gonzalez.
She is survived by her aunt, Lola Saenz of La Rosita, brothers Jesse Alaniz of Corpus Christi & Roman Alaniz Jr. of San Diego and sister, Angie Garcia (Jesse) of Dayton, Ohio. Surviving children are Dr. Fernando Gonzalez (Dr. Dawn) of San Angelo, Gloria Van Camp of Dallas, Dr. Roberto Gonzalez Jr. (Loretta) of Edmond, Oklahoma, Dr. Hector Gonzalez of Addison, Texas, Irene Pennington (Art) of Fulshear, Texas and Annette Burnap (Jerry) of Grand Prairie, Texas.
Family visitation will be held from 6:00pm to 8:00pm on Friday, August 26, 2016 at Robert Massie Funeral Home.
Funeral service will be held at 10:00am on Saturday, August 27, 2016 at Robert Massie Riverside Chapel with Father Joey Faylona, of St. Mary Catholic Church officiating under the direction of Robert Massie Funeral Home.
We would like to extend our thanks to the staff at New Haven Assisted Living for the love and care extended to our mother. “Mama Leonor” mothered them all and proved that “once a mother, always a mother.” Special thanks also to Hospice of San Angelo.