Bertha Lidia Ramirez

Bertha Lidia Ramirez, beloved mother, sister, and aunt, passed away on April 2, 2020 after a long suffering with Alzheimer’s at the age of 85. Bertha is survived by her son Giovanni, sister Beatrice, brother Alfredo, several cousins, nieces, and nephews. Bertha was born in Quito, Ecuador as the fifth of nine children to Francisco and Delia Ramirez. She graduated from 24 de Mayo High School and worked in the Ecuadorean National Congress until she immigrated to the United States. While living in New Orleans, she became a U.S. citizen in 1966.  She worked many jobs in the greater New Orleans area, such as at the historic Fairmont Hotel, the locally iconic Rubenstein’s department store, and the Simmons Mattress Warehouse.  She was also an Avon representative for many years and achieved the level of Avon President’s Club member in the early 1980s.  Bertha resided in the greater New Orleans area until 2005 when she moved to the Spring, TX area after Hurricane Katrina. She had a love for gardening and arts & crafts. Over the years, she expressed her artistic talents in macramé, ceramics, porcelain, garden stone painting, fabric painting, and paper card art. Gardening was her other creative outlet where she loved planting seasonal flowers at home.  In New Orleans, she volunteered for many years helping with the garden of the convent of the Servants of Mary – Ministers to the Sick, which gave her great joy being in the presence of the religious sisters’ community. Bertha was a woman of deep faith and her Catholic devotions were important to her.  She carried within her the memories of her youth in the churches of Quito and would speak of the seasonal traditions with such fondness.  She maintained her faith and spirituality in her new homeland of the Unites States where she most recently had been a parishioner of Saints Simon and Jude in the Woodlands, TX. She also loved praying the rosary. Bertha was a humorous person, loving to tease and joke around. She had smiling eyes and a joyful spirit.  Even in her final days, there would be times where her playful side would nudge through the veil of the disease and that old recognizable sparkle would peer through. She enjoyed saving mementos of family member’s achievements, news, events, and photos.  It was not uncommon for someone to ask her if she recalled the date of a certain past family member’s event and she would look in her family files.  She enjoyed saving these memories and it was her way of always feeling connected to family history.