Blanca Stella Arana

Feb. 22, 1928 – Aug. 27, 2024

Blanca Stella Arana, a Salvadorian immigrant, devoted Catholic and an accounting secretary who raised four children in Palo Alto, died on Aug. 27 at a nursing home in Seatac, Wash., after an eight-year battle with Alzheimer’s dementia. 

She was born to Fernando Zelaya and Maria Rosa Barillas on Feb. 22, 1928 in San Salvador. 

She was the first woman to graduate from the Simón Bolívar Preparatory School in San Salvador. Women at the time were expected to become housewives, and the school taught them to sew, cook and perform domestic chores. But she graduated with a certificate as an accounting secretary. She first worked as an accounting secretary for Freund Hardware store in San Salvador for 15 years. Later she worked for her sister, who owned various businesses, doing the bookkeeping for a hotel, and a hardware store.

She met her husband to be, Jose Casto Arana, while he was going to school and working as a meter reader for the power company.

They married on Jan. 3, 1954, and would have four children between 1954 and 1963. 

An accountant, Mr. Arana held a number of jobs in El Salvador including banker and salesman.

In 1967, when President Lyndon Johnson opened up immigration, Mr. Arana became an apprentice baker at a hotel in Santa Ana. He received a U.S. visa that favored bakers from Latin America. He bravely traveled alone to California to find a job, a move taken at considerable risk. He told his family he would bring them to California if he was successful, and he was.

His children recalled that they had to take buses from El Salvador and the trip was grueling. The family settled first in San Jose and then in Palo Alto.

His training as a baker led him to a job at the now-defunct Andre’s L’omelette French restaurant, which stood at Maybell Avenue and El Camino Real in Palo Alto. In the mid-1970s, Mr. Arana became a chef in Stanford’s residence halls, first Wilbur then Stern. 

Mrs. Arana received an accounting certificate for nonprofits and for-profit concerns. She used her accounting skills in jobs at Alza, Syntex and Cisco. 

Her children remember Mrs. Arana’s optimism. “Mom believed the glass was always half full, and she taught us to be self-reliant and adaptable,” said her son Jaime.

“I asked her how come she always smiled. She answered that nobody wants to see you with a frown on your face,” he said.

Mrs. Arana was a devout Catholic and always prayed for her children, Jaime said.

If the family was late to Mass, she insisted that they go through the front door so that both the priest and God would witness their attendance, her daughter Mae recalled. 

After renting for years, the couple bought a house in south Palo Alto in the early 1980s. Mr. Arana was against the purchase, saying it would leave them “house rich but cash poor.” However, Mrs. Arana, utilizing her skills in finance, was able to find a way for the family to buy the home where they would raise their children.

The home grew in value and when the couple needed to enter a rest home, proceeds from the sale of the residence made their lives more comfortable.

“My mom was a matriarch — always guiding the family to do well and making my dad think he was the boss,” Jaime recalled with a laugh. “My Italian friends had a saying in the kitchen: ‘I’m the boss of my family, and I have my wife’s permission to say so.’ That was my mom exactly.”

Mr. Arana retired in 1989, and he died on Oct. 2, 2010, following 55 happy years of marriage.

In addition to her love for her husband, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she adored her dog, Roy, an orange Chow-German Sheppard mix. He was fiercely loyal, once biting a neighbor who stepped into her garage without permission. But Roy was affectionate and her constant companion. 

Often Mrs. Arana would take Roy out for a “hamburguesa” at McDonald’s. The two of them would cruise around south Palo Alto, enjoying each other’s company. 

Mrs. Arana is survived by children Ana of Sacramento; Jose (Kelly) of San Jose; Jaime of Seattle; Mae (David) of Fort Mill, S.C.; grandchildren Thomas, Mateo, Arick, Aricka, Ana, Laura and Jack, and great-grandson Javier. 

A Mass was celebrated Sept. 11 at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Burien, Wash., with inurnment at Washington Memorial Park in Seatac, Wash.