Leslie Stringfellow Haydel

July 6, 1944 - June 7, 2020

Leslie Stringfellow Haydel passed away on June 7, 2020 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Leslie was born on July 6, 1944 in Long Beach, CA. Her father William Smails died when she was very young and her mother Karen Andreasen remarried an Air Force pilot, Glassell Stringfellow, who adopted Leslie. Because of her father’s duty assignments, Leslie moved fairly often and she grew up in Dayton, OH; Berkeley, CA; Falls Church, VA; and San Bernardino, CA.

She started college at UC Santa Barbara and transferred to UC Berkeley after her sophomore year. There she met Jim Haydel, a law student. A year later they were married. Jim was an officer in the Marine Corps and Leslie spent the next two years with him in Quantico, VA; Newport, RI; and Twentynine Palms, CA. After welcoming their first child, she and their daughter, Farish, spent a year with Leslie’s family in Wiesbaden, Germany while Jim was in Vietnam. Upon his return, they settled in Berkeley.

Leslie had four daughters - Farish (1967), Elizabeth (1969), Auban (1975), and Jennie (1980). The family moved to Piedmont in 1979, where they lived until 1998, when Jim and Leslie separated, leading to divorce.

In 1998 Leslie returned to Berkeley and lived in the Elmwood area. In 2007 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and in 2015 moved into the Lakeside Memory Care facility. Her caretaker and friend for the last years of her life was Catrina Smith.

Leslie was a kind and generous person and her home in Piedmont was a popular after-school gathering spot for her daughters’ friends, who have fond memories of the annual “back-toschool” spaghetti dinners at 515 Park Way. Leslie’s home was also a welcoming place for foreign exchange students from Japan, Switzerland, Germany, the Dominican Republic, and Denmark. Her generosity of spirit was manifested by her assistance to adult non-readers and to one of Piedmont’s few unhoused people, Charles Johnson, to whom Leslie tended until his death.

Leslie was an adventurous spirit who was the animating force behind multi-month trips in 1978, 1983, and 1989 during which the family saw all of Europe in a VW pop-top camper. She was game for any adventure. Until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Leslie was a teacher’s aide at Beach Elementary School in Piedmont. She loved working with children and was a lifelong animal lover tending to dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils, fish, finches, canaries, and stick bugs. She was an avid reader and amassed an impressive library with an emphasis on American and English history and novels by and about women. Leslie was a devoted “Nonna” to her six grandchildren, Tara Strauch, Chloe Haydel-Brown, Will Strauch, Kate Haydel-Brown, Ellie Willats and Grette Willats. She is survived by her daughter Farish Haydel and son-in-law Aaron Strauch, daughter Elizabeth Haydel and son-in-law Trevor Brown, daughter Auban Willats and son-in-law Andy Willats, her grandchildren, her sisters Mary Bromwell and Lisa Stringfellow, her brother John Stringfellow, and her dog Shannie. She was predeceased by her youngest daughter, Jennie, who died in 2010.

Donations in Leslie’s memory can be made to the Jennie Haydel Endowed Fund in Craft Media (https://bit.ly/30kiRgc) or to the charity of your choice. Leslie was a generous giver almost to the end of her life and would have been so moved by the protests for equality. She regularly fed the homeless, took in stray dogs, gave to environmental and democratic causes, and cared about the plight of those marginalized from societies worldwide.