By Emily J. Minor
GULF STREAM — Elena M. Forrester, a native of San Francisco and a world traveler who moved to Gulf Stream in 1972 and told her family she’d never leave, died in her sleep at her beloved home on Jan. 11. She was 99.
Mrs. Forrester’s son, Alex Lilley, said they thought perhaps his mother would make it to her 100th birthday in May. “She’d never really been sick,” he said. But over the summer, she suffered a bad reaction to a medication. “That almost knocked her out,” he said.
She recovered, but never fully. By December when her son visited, she was weak and barely able to speak, he said.
Born in San Francisco in 1910, she studied in Italy after her graduation from that city’s famous Miss Burke’s School in 1928. While overseas, she learned so speak fluent Italian. After World War II — married and with children — she moved with her family to Paris for four years, her son said. There, she learned fluent French. Lilley said his mother was a loyal friend with a nice sense of humor, but she was also determined to excel at the things she set out to do.
“If she was going to be good at something, she was going to be good at it,” he said. “If she wanted to be a good cook, she didn’t just dabble in it.”
An impressive golfer even into her 90s, Mrs. Forrester was a member of the Gulf Stream Club and active at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church. She also enjoyed playing bridge.
Her first husband, Neil Lilley, died in 1976. Her second husband, Bob Forrester, died in 1997. A daughter, Elena Lilley, passed away in 2004.
Besides her son, who lives in Southern California, she is survived by two grandchildren and a great-grandson.
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