Mary Lynn Yglesias

Mary Lynn Pruitt Yglesias, loving wife and mother, passed away peacefully in her Valparaiso home on February 23rd. One day shy of her 100th birthday! Known for her friendliness and generosity, she will be dearly missed by family and neighbors. Lynn is fondly remembered by her sister Caroline; her children Tom, James, Sidney, Kay, Patrick, and Cecilia; her four grandchildren and five great grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Tom Yglesias, her siblings Leora, Tom and Jim, and her grandsons Lucas and Daniel.

Lynn was the daughter of James Clyde and Mary Belle Pruitt. Raised in South Carolina until her teens, she moved with her family to Valparaiso in the 1930s, and then attended Florida State University. During that time, she met Tom Yglesias, whom she promptly married, welcoming four children by the age of 24. From that point on, her life was in constant motion. From farming in Florida to raising her kids in California, Texas, Mexico and numerous points in between, Lynn was the glue that kept her family together. In the early 1960s, the family landed in Brownsville, Texas, where Lynn taught elementary and high school and was a highly regarded teacher. In the late 1970s, the family returned to Valparaiso and where Lynn cared for her mother full-time for the next 15 years decades.

When the going got tough, Lynn got going. If people in her life need caring for, she was there, whether it was her gravely ill son-in-law or grandson, her wheelchair bound teacher friend, or the ill family housekeeper, Lynn was there feeding and nursing them loyally. The people she helped and gave her time to are far too numerous to name; They remember, and many are with her in heaven now.

Lynn was in the kitchen from the age of 5 to 99. Believing the five major food groups were sugar, butter, flour, eggs and vanilla, she naturally became a highly skilled baker and pastry chef, spoiling family and friends with her delicious creations. Towards the end of her life, hospice nurses would sometimes have to do their check-up in the kitchen where she was still going at it. Her skills in the garden were legendary. Cultivating, rescuing, and collecting plants and flowers of all kinds, Lynn was happiest with a well-stocked green house, and even happier after a day of gardening when it was happy hour, and she got her margarita. She will be remembered as a happy, social person; always making lemonade out of lemons.

Lynn was an incredible mother. Not perfect, but wonderful still! Her offspring were her proudest achievements. Always acknowledging their achievements, small and large, making fun trips to the beach and the zoo, splashing in the bayou, cooking and sewing and just giving love, she was the consummate mom and grandmother.

As was her wish, Lynn's ashes will be interred alongside her husband Tom's at Valparaiso Sunset Cemetery in a private ceremony to be held at a later date.

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