Emma Louis-Dreyfus
June 16, 1974 - Aug 13, 2018
Emma Louis-Dreyfus, a San Francisco Bay Area resident and social worker, died on August 13 in Nevada County, California. She was 44.
Emma lived in Oakland and worked in San Mateo County. Raised a New Yorker, the Bay Area became her adoptive home since moving to San Francisco in 1998. Emma loved the city life and she also loved the countryside, particularly the Sierra Nevada and Teton mountains. One of her favorite weekend getaways was the Yuba River. It was along that river where Emma died of an apparent seizure while camping with friends near Purdon Crossing.
Born in New York City on June 16, 1974, she attended the Bank Street School for Children and Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City, graduating in 1992. Four years later, she graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology.
Emma was a large presence despite her short stature, filling rooms with her exuberance and irreverent laugh. Dinner party games were a must with her. Favorites included charades, cards, Balderdash, Twister, Monopoly. She enjoyed the camaraderie and the competition of playing sports (soccer, touch-football, tennis, softball), drank Tab and always had gumballs and Werther’s in her bag to hand out.
A brilliant, progressive thinker and supporter of social justice, Emma’s desire to help those in need is what led her to complete a Masters in Social Welfare degree in 2002 from the University of California, Berkeley. Outside of work, Emma loved to hike, camp, ski and travel. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Peru. In Barcelona, she watched Spain win the 2010 World Cup with a friend. With her mother, she traveled through Asia.
In her career, Emma was a clinical social worker and family therapist, a calling that included child advocacy, community activism, training and supervision. Most recently, she worked as a bilingual clinician, fluent in Spanish, for the StarVista and Community Well organizations in the Bay Area. She was also a Graduate Fellow in Infant Parent Mental Health. Earlier this year, she received a certificate in Neurosequential Modeling of Therapeutics (NMT) to help address issues around childhood trauma.
Emma adored children, especially her niece and nephews, and was an ardent animal lover, which included her beloved dogs: the late Eisadora (Eisa), whom she shared an email address with, and Obatunde (Oba). Eisa was known for stealing sandwiches in Golden Gate Park – Emma was known for buying new ones to replace them.
Emma is survived by her mother, Phyllis; sisters, Phoebe Eavis and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and their husbands, Peter Eavis and Brad Hall; brother, Raphael Penteado; niece, Victoria Eavis; nephews, Henry Hall, Charlie Hall, and Isaiah Eavis; and her partner Sean Kim. Her father, William Louis-Dreyfus, died in 2016. In Emma’s honor, memorial donations can be made to the Community Well - http://www.communitywellsf.com.