Obituary of Leona Fern North

Leona Fern North, age 95, passed away September 19, in Oroville California at Country Crest Post Acute skilled nursing facility where she had resided since 2016. Leona was born in San Jose California on March 17, 1925 to Hazel and Charles Ritchey. One of six kids, she is preceded in death by her parents and her brother Chet Ritchey, her sisters Naida Kalinoski, Maxine Johnson, Roberta Galloway and is survived by her sister, Laura Ritchey. Leona is also proceeded in death by her husband of 56 years Elbert A “Pete” North (2003) and her two sons, Don North (2004) and Ritch North (2016). She is survived by her two daughters, Kathy Seman and Merrily Lee, her daughters in Law, Donna North, Robyn North, her 15 grandkids and 17 great grandkids (and the one on the way). After graduating, class of 1942, from CK McClatchey High school in Sacramento, CA, Leona attended nursing school at Samuel Merritt Hospital in Oakland CA. During her training there she was part of the Cadet Nursing Corps to help serve the wartime medical needs. Leona worked as an RN for over 40 years. 20 of those years of service were at Oroville Hospital as a Charge Nurse and a Circulating Nurse in the OR with a stint as the Surgical Superior. While she enjoyed her nursing career, Leona’s greatest love was her friendship with Jesus. She wanted to serve him with her life and went into nursing with the thought of using those skills on the foreign mission field. Then she met and married Pete North, a graduate of Glad Tidings Bible Institute (later called Bethany Bible College). Together they formed a strong partnership of ministry both inside and outside the church. Over the years, they served in six different churches as Lead pastors with the Assemblies of God in Northern California and South Dakota. They also served in two other churches as Associate pastors, one of which was Trinity Bible Church in Oroville, CA. They became part of the leadership team there around 1973. And, with the exception of five years spent acting as Pastors to Seniors at an Assemblies of God church in Salinas, CA, they served at Trinity in one form or another, until Pete passed away in 2003. Leona continued attending and serving there until she just could no longer make it to church. But even though she was not present there physically, her heart was always there. We owe a big THANK YOU to Trinity Bible who loved her well and cared for her in so many ways over the years. She loved being a part of your family. Leona embraced life as an adventure and a song. Her love for music was evident to all who knew her. One of her favorite things to do was singing harmony with friends in duets, trios, quartettes and choirs. She played piano and organ, but really enjoyed playing the trumpet and was known to talk people into dusting off their instruments to play a brass trio for some event. Every Christmas and Easter offered Leona an opportunity to assemble a kids program. And if nothing had been planned (gasp!) you could be sure she would spend many hours on the phone wrangling people in to make sure a program happened and everyone was involved. Together, Leona and Pete were an impressive team who found a great deal of joy in serving others and pointing people to the goodness of God through their words and actions. One way they loved people was to show up for their programs, events and celebrations. They were known to drive for hours to be at someone’s special thing because they both understood that God is in the moments of peoples lives. Birthdays, graduations, weddings and even funerals were opportunities to communicate the love and grace of Jesus, and they made it their mission to celebrate others well and often. As with many people, aging causes memories to fade and relationships to become confusing. For Leona, information was difficult to hang on to, but the one thing she was never confused about was the presence of Jesus in her life and the hope of meeting him face to face. She spoke of this often in her last years and this hope brought her great comfort. The other thing she was able to hold on to, even as she was declining, was her enjoyment of singing and was often seen rolling through the halls or sitting in a patch of sunlight humming or singing an old hymn or gospel chorus. This earned her the nick name of the Song Bird around the nursing facility and many people there expressed how much they loved to hear her voice ringing through the hallways. (Shout out to Country Crest for being so wonderful to her, meeting her every need and giving her a place to call home when she could no longer care for herself. YOU ALL ROCK!) There will not be a public service for Leona. Her children and grandchildren will hold a private celebration to honor her.