Teruyo Yoshida

January 2, 1928 – May 14, 2014

Teruyo Yoshida (86) was called home to glory during the early morning hours of Wednesday May 14, 2014 at Saddleback Memorial Hospital after suffering a sudden and catastrophic aneurism at her home in Laguna Hills in the company and presence of her children.

Born Fung-lang Chen on January 2, 1928 in Taipei Taiwan, Teruyo was the oldest of seven children, four girls and three boys born to Chiu-ju Lin Chen (mother) and Kai-jun Chen (father).

Educated at the Taipei First Girls High School during an era of colonial occupation by Japan, Teruyo learned to speak fluent Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and the English language in addition to her native Taiwanese dialect.

During World War II she survived allied bombing raids and depravation caused by the confiscation of her family's business and property by the Japanese military. As a young woman in the post war years of reconstruction she expressed herself artistically as a painter and worked as an elementary school teacher for a time before quickly establishing herself as an energetic and resourceful entrepreneur. She worked as a film promoter and distributor for Paramount Studios and became a successful real estate developer and investor, including multi-family residential properties she built and leased for housing U.S. Army officers and their families.

Teruyo was married in Taipei on December 5, 1950 to Tadamasa Yoshida (Kuei-ling Peng). As a wife, mother and homemaker, she supported her husband's career as an international trading company executive and relentlessly pursued the education of her five children, all of whom hold college degrees. She maintained her entrepreneurial passion and interest in real estate all her life, and maintained residences near all of her children on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, in Taipei, Tokyo, and in Southern California.

After retiring Teruyo and Tadamasa travelled together to Europe and the Mediterranean, continued to enjoy golf, and eagerly looked forward to any family gathering on holidays, birthdays, graduations and weddings. As the oldest of seven siblings, mother of five and grandmother of eight, Teruyo was a true Matriarch, caring deeply for the welfare and prosperity of everyone who was under her wings. Her children and grandchildren include engineers, artists, professors, doctors, architects, business professionals and dedicated home makers with a legacy of family ties across several cultures and languages that extend over more than half of the earth.

Teruyo is survived by her husband Tadamasa, younger sisters Shirley (Ming-Hong,deceased) Wei, Una (Mitt) Francisco, and Nancy(Jimmy) Wu, and younger brothers Wen-Kuei(Michelle) Chen and Wen-Quen Chen, her five children, Hui-Jen Peng, Richard Peng (Meeyu), Emi(Toru) Yoshikawa, Keiko(Alan) Zemek and youngest daughter Hui-Wen(Yong) Zuo, her eight grandchildren, Amanda, Julia, Jennifer, Allison, Michael, Jun, Eri, and Joseph, and many many cousins, nieces, nephews and their children as well. Teruyo was preceeded in death by her parents and by younger brother Wen-Xiong Chen.

A memorial service will be held at McCormick & Son Mortuary at 25000 Moulton Parkway Laguna Hills California 92653 at 8:30 am Sunday morning May 18, 2014 followed by procession and burial at El Toro Memorial Park Cemetery in Lake Forest, California at 10:00 am. A reception will follow the internment at the home of Alan and Keiko Zemek in Laguna Niguel, California.