Maria Lourdes Vasquez (Vasquez) Service Information

With great sadness, we announce that María Lourdes Vásquez started her journey into the great unknown on November 13, 2024, clenching to her Catholic faith. She passed away at home, surrounded by some of her greatest loves. She was 72 years old.

Before she was Mimi to her five grandchildren in Pennsylvania and California, to her closest family and friends she was Lula, a nickname for Lourdes in her native Nicaragua, where she was born in 1952 to the late Camilo Vasquez and the late María Sanchez de Vásquez. The third of four children, she was raised in Managua. When she wasn’t being called Lula, she was Lourdes. Rarely María Lourdes. Never María.

By the time the revolution broke out in Nicaragua in the late 1970s she had two young children. By the early 1980s the Sandinistas had taken over, forcing Lourdes's then family of five to migrate north, leaving her elementary teaching days behind, along with her professional aspiration to practice law. Her father remained in the country as a prisoner of war; her eldest brother continued fighting for the Contras. Lourdes and her young family became political refugees in Los Angeles, California. With her then husband, Francisco Duarte, Lourdes raised their three children with a commitment to education, faith, respect, work ethic, and love of country. With odds against her, Lourdes provided her children post-secondary education with much determination and sacrifice. She became a U.S. citizen and did not take voting lightly. Lourdes was a lover of the outdoors. She walked daily at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where she and her family made lifelong friends. Determined to be a Californian for life, Lourdes later fell in love with Pennsylvania’s greenery and open space, bringing her calmness in her sunset years. She ultimately moved to Bucks County and left her footprints through the area's many parks, including Tyler State Park, Core Creek Park and Playwicki Farm.

Those who knew her will remember Lourdes as a vivacious and faithful friend with an intoxicating laugh; an admirable and exemplary woman who was full of life; a fighter; and a champion of her mother tongue. Her generosity was as epic as her Spanish lessons. Her perfumes infused her homes with the sweetness she used to tend to others. Her gallo pinto filled the bellies of her family (and likely anyone reading this) with the richness of her soul. She carried her native Nicaragua with her everywhere, proud of the country and culture that shaped her. She loved America, grateful for the opportunities and success afforded to her children and grandchildren. She fiercely protected those she loved, no matter the odds. She endured difficult medical treatments to have every extra moment she could get with her grandchildren. She was passionate about news, politics, music, and dance. She was beautiful inside and out, compassionate, a strict mother, a not-so-strict grandmother, a teacher, a friend, and an endless source of wisdom.

Lourdes was forever grateful to her medical team, who cared for and comforted her during some of her most trying times. Because of them, she was able to find light and joy with the people she loved most a bit longer.  Lourdes will be sorely missed, yet surely never forgotten.

Lourdes is mourned and celebrated by her son, two daughters, five grandchildren, the Duarte, Klodt and Adler families, and the many friends whose lives she touched throughout the U.S. and Nicaragua.

Relatives and friends are invited to gather for a remembrance from 6 to 8 p. m. on Friday, November 22, 2024, at Joseph A. Fluehr III Funeral Home, 800 Newtown-Richboro Road (at Holland Rd.) Richboro, PA 18954. A Funeral Mass will be at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 23, 2024, at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 81 Swamp Road, Newtown, PA 18940. Per Lourdes's request: No black attire, please. Interment will be private.

 In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Andrew Catholic Education Center, 51 Wrights Road, Newtown, PA 18940.

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