Loraine Strong

August 29, 1940 - November 15, 2022

Loraine Elizabeth Bell Strong passed away on November 15th, 2022 after a three-year battle with cancer.

Loraine was born on August 29, 1940 to Ronald Orlando Bell and Ella Helen Kingbay Bell in San Francisco. After Loraine graduated from Watsonville High School in 1958, she went on to study at Hartnell College, then San Francisco State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education.

Loraine taught across several grades, including stints at Dudley Stone School in San Francisco, Skyline Elementary School in Daly City, Hillside Elementary School in South San Francisco, and Krouzian Zekarian School in San Francisco, where she taught from 1987-2001.

While studying at Hartnell College, Loraine met her future husband, Walfred LeRoy Strong, when LeRoy sent a friend to tell her he found her cute and would like to meet in the library. Thus began a lifelong romance between two booklovers. Loraine and LeRoy went on to have three children: Rhonda Strong Gilmour, Brenda Strong Escalera, and Christopher Strong.

Her church community played a central part in Loraine’s life, and she served as a church volunteer at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in South San Francisco, then at St. Robert’s Catholic

Church in San Bruno.

Loraine was an avid quilter, creating beautiful fabric art for friends and family, tactile quilts for blind babies, and quilts for the Life Moves Shelter for unhoused families. Meetings, quilting retreats, and cruises with the Peninsula Quilters’ Guild and the Doelger Senior Center Quilters brought her great joy.

Loraine also became a talented photographer, delighting friends and family with her photos of flowers and local beauty spots.

Friends may visit on Tuesday, November 29th, from 4pm to 6pm, with a vigil service at 6:00pm at Duggan’s Serra Mortuary, 500 Westlake Avenue, Daly City, CA. Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday, November 30th, at 1:00pm at St. Robert’s Church, 1380 Crystal Springs Rd., San Bruno, CA. Burial at Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma.