This memorial site is to celebrate the life and memories of our dearest mother, wife, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend Maria. She passed quietly early in the morning at home on Dec 13th, 2014.
We encourage you to share stories, memories, photos and videos in her honor. We hope this will serve as a place for us to connect, remember, share or just to say bye. She loved her family and friends and we know she is smiling with us in remembering her life.
Maria's Funeral Mass will be on January 19th at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Ramona at 10:00am. There will be a rosary starting at 9:30am before the mass. Immediately following the mass there will be a celebration of her life in the church hall. She will be interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum in San Diego at 3:00pm.
Please stop by often as we update this site. We appreciate all of the tributes and stories family and friends have been leaving here. You can easily log in with your Facebook account if you have one.
Maria's Obituary
Early morning on December 13, 2014, a wonderful woman made her way to a better place. Maria quietly passed away at home in Ramona after enduring 12 years of Parkinson’s and later dementia. She was born at home in Niederwil, Switzerland, October 1, 1931, on a poultry farm, the youngest daughter of Robert and Marie Seiler. In 1948 she immigrated to Canada with her family where they settled on a dairy farm in Mitchell, Ontario. Wanting to live in a warmer climate, she moved to Santa Monica in 1953 and worked at her sister and brother-in-law’s pastry shop (Swiss Pastries by Marcel) on Wilshire Boulevard for three years. She was also an Au Pair in Malibu for a while. While in Santa Monica, she met and fell in love with Charles Steiner, a first generation Swiss, who was born and grew up in Santa Monica on a dairy farm.
After getting married in 1956, they moved to Ramona in 1966 with their three children after living in Fontana, California, and Lisbon, Illinois. In 1970, Maria and Charles bought an egg farm on Steffy Lane. Maria dedicated her time to her family and being the bookkeeper of their Swiss Mountain View Egg Farm business for 48 years. During this time she was very active in the IHM Catholic Church, being on the building committee for the new church, president of the Alter and Rosary Society for many years and being the driving force behind many of the annual turkey dinners at the church. Additionally, she was a board member of the San Diego Diocesan Deanery.
While her children were growing up and for a number of years after, Maria was very active in the Ramona Stars 4-H club where she was the Community Leader of the club and also the leader of the sheep, cooking, and sewing projects. Many will remember her famous brownies which she baked for each 4-H community meeting to ensure sure she got most of the club to attend the meetings. She was also on the organizing boards of the Ramona Community Fair during its key building and growth phases and the 4-H board of the Del Mar fair where she used her gentle persuasion to make sure 4-H remained the key focus of the fairs.
In 1986 Maria and her daughter, Sonja, took over the Ramona Café on Main Street. She spent the early years of the business perfecting the recipes of everything from the sausage gravy to the pies and cinnamon rolls. While Sonja ran the restaurant, Maria was the restaurant baker which later Sonja took over.
Maria had been active in the San Diego Swiss Society in Chula Vista where she was able to keep up with her Swiss language, heritage and many friends. She and Charles enjoyed singing in the San Diego Swiss Singers group for many years and travelled up the coast for many Saengerfests.
Maria was preceded in death by her parents, Robert and Marie Seiler, and brother, Robert Seiler. She is survived by her loving husband of 58 years, Charles Steiner; daughter, Sonja Steiner of Ramona, CA; sons, Dr. Charley Steiner, DVM, of Fallbrook, CA, and Stefan Steiner of Issaquah, WA; grandchildren, Chase, Marianna and Rebecca; sisters, Margrith Burlet and Sylvia Bruhin and brother Stephan Seiler. Additionally, Maria and Charles consider Dr. Elisabeth Brandenburg, MD, of Whitefish, MT, a daughter since Beth came to live on the farm as a young woman in the 70’s and became very close to the family. Beth has a husband Todd and two children, Geoff and Tim.
Maria will have a Funeral Mass at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Ramona, CA, on January 19, 2015, at 10am. Before the mass at 9:30am, there will be a Rosary. There will be a celebration of life in the church hall immediately following her funeral. After the celebration, Maria will be interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery and Mausoleum in San Diego, CA.
Tributes
Leave a tributeThe world, or at least our small corner of it, is a better place because she was in it.
I have wonderful memories of how you prepared me for my visit to Switzerland, the home of my ancestors in September 2005. I speak not a word of German so you listed the "please and thank you phrases" that I would need.
Hilde Buchmann
To all of the family, I pray you find peace in knowing that your wife/mom touched so many lives. Thank you for being a part of mine.
Lori Alcaraz Foss
1964. Unsere Familie war zu Besuch in Chicago.
With love to the family, Sylvia
She will be missed by all.
In another occasion, my mother came from Mexico to visit me. When Maria found out, she invited us for dinner. The doors of her home where open and a fresh made dinner and a pie were served on her table. We became family and we loved to be part of it.
She had this illness for a while and I have missed her hugs and inspirational words. I'm happy to know. she is with God now. Even though, she is not physically here, I know she is in the hearts and minds
of many people that share a special moment with her. RIP Sra. Maria
Leave a Tribute
The world, or at least our small corner of it, is a better place because she was in it.
Aunt Maria and the Guardian Angel
Aunt Maria has meant so much to me over the years. She is one of the most loving people I have ever met, and when you are a kid, and when you have an aunt like that, it is something special. You just know how special you are, because she tells you. And the way she tells you, it makes you feel like wow, it must be true. Every single time she saw you she would open up her arms for a big hug, with her eyes twinkling, completely focused on you.
I have so many memories of Aunt Maria at the egg farm, at family gatherings on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and of course just sitting in the kitchen in the old house, while she whipped up spatzeli for dinner, or deckeli for dessert.
I was definitely a kid from the suburbs, and so I loved visiting the ranch — exploring the attic, candeling eggs, finding “soft eggs” to throw at cousins, and even vaccinating chickens against Newcastle disease.
Once, somehow, I talked Sonja into giving me a turn at driving the new small tractor. Within moments, it was out of my control and we were going straight up a steep embankment. I panicked. But faster and smarter than me, Sonja reached over and turned the key just before the tractor, with us, might have fallen backward. At least that’s how it felt. We ran down to the house, where Aunt Maria assured Sonja she wasn’t having a heart attack, and explained that our guardian angels had been looking out for us. Aunt Maria had a way of listening to us. We knew she took us seriously, but at the same time she didn’t react as if I had nearly klled us both. She just talked about how our guardian angels had shown up just when we needed them, because that is what guardian angels (apparently) do.
I was floored. I never knew I had a guardian angel. Aunt Maria was so authoritative in her belief; it was beyond question, and the thought of my very own guardian angel, which she told me I had, touched me to the core. I have never forgotten that moment, and that’s just the kind of gift Aunt Maria would so frequently give to kids, and why I think we all loved her so much.
I will miss Aunt Maria so much. And by the way, I just love that picture of her with her mixmaster in the kitchen. Exactly as I will always remember her.