The family hoped that the missing grandmother had been lost after destroying her from Altadena at home

For days, the family and friends of Miva Wheatley Friedli kept the hope that it was lost somewhere and not at home when Eaton’s fire torn Altadena.

The 86-year-old grandmother often talked about faith and deplored life in Costa Rica, where she was born.

She was one of the 15 children, married at 17 at a civil ceremony and arrived in California after the traces of her older brother when she was an adult. She continued to raise three boys at her house on rue Mariposa in Altadena and remarried later and became a widow later in life.

But in the days that followed the fire, there was not the house left. His nephew Juan Gonzalez found a bunch of debris and his front door which was always locked.

She had Parkinson’s disease, walked with a slight tremor and the Sheriff’s Department of the County of Los Angeles listed it as suffering from dementia in the bulletin of a missing person.

The family and friends shared her photo on social networks asking for help in the hope that she could not remember her name and was lost in a refuge or a hospital.

Then on January 15, two days before his birthday, the corpses research and rescue dogs found human remains at home and informed the family.

“I was hoping, praying, doing everything it would be found, because I couldn’t adapt to the alternative option,” said Carol Wheatley about her older sister.

Parents described Friedli as a devout Christian, an independent and excessive woman who worked in the medical field and later in childcare services.

“She always had a strong personality, but under her sometimes severe exterior was a very soft and loving human being,” said her sister.

Gonzalez remembers having spent time when he was a child with his cousins ​​at Friedli’s home.

He and his brother and his cousins ​​accumulate in his uncle’s break and headed for downtown Los Angeles, where the family would go shopping.

“She would always buy us strawberry milk,” said Gonzalez laughing.

He remembers her smile and her warmth, how she treated him like her own child, because her mother worked so much.

His aunt Miva, he said affectionately, would take him to church on Sunday and he remembers 7 or 8 years old falling asleep in the benches during these Baptist sermons.

“Many good times when I was younger,” said Gonzalez.

The immense grief about his death is underlined by questions about Friedli’s death at home. Several parents have lost their house in the fire, including Myrin Wheatley Brown, 83, Friedli’s sister.

In the morning after destroying it from the house, she wore a facial mask while her adult children searched through the ashes and debris of the house where the family has lived for over 50 years.

“Our aunt is missing,” said the family about Friedli.

Myrin Wheatley Brown hosted her head and her husband, Frank Brown, said: “Our dear sister is missing.”

The Los Angeles County Legalist’s office still lists human remains found in the approximate place where Friedli lived like an unidentified Jane Doe. A DNA test is carried out to confirm the identity, according to the family.

Sheila Wheatley joined the family when she married Friedli Victor Wheatley’s nephew.

She remembers several years ago to go home and spot Friedli, who was a widow and was no longer driven, walking on a steep hill to her home in Altadena.

She stopped and offered him a turn.

“She said to me,” No, thank you. I could use the exercise ” said Sheila Wheatley.

Friedli took her phone number and Sheila Wheatley joined the small group of parents that Friedli authorized in his interior orbit, caregiver to pay bills or make phone calls.

Relatives have registered regularly and while Friedli became recurred in recent years, she was still grateful for their aid and their business.

“She was grateful to God for help,” said Sheila Wheatley, who considers her time with Friedli as a reminder of visiting the family while you still have the opportunity, even if they are withdrawn.

“It was a beautiful soul, very strong, very resilient,” she said.

Friedli’s younger sister Carol Wheatley wants people to remember her sister as a mother, brother and sister. The two sisters were lost from each other when Friedli moved to the United States, but reconnected years later and was often in contact.

“She always quoted the Bible and she would always find something positive to say, trying to raise you,” said Carol Wheatley.

Even when Carol Wheatley could say something negative, his sister pulled back: “We are very grateful to the Lord. She always reminded us, ”said Carol Wheatley. “His faith was strong.”