San Juan Honorary Matriarch Dies : Services: Juanita Rios Foy belonged to one of the community’s oldest families and will be honored with a funeral procession. She was 78.

Funeral services will be held Friday for Juanita Rios Foy, the honorary matriarch of San Juan Capistrano and a member of one of California’s oldest families, who died at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center Sunday after a lengthy illness. She was 78.

Foy, a seventh-generation San Juan Capistrano resident and a member of the local Juaneno Indian tribe, traced her ancestry to Feliciano Rios, a Mission San Juan Capistrano soldier who built the family’s Rios Adobe in 1794.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated by Msgr. Paul M. Martin at 9:30 a.m. Friday at St. John of Capistrano Church at Mission San Juan Capistrano. Consistent with the traditional burial of the oldest families in San Juan Capistrano, a procession from the church to the Old Mission Cemetery off Ortega Highway will take place after the Mass.

Foy had been in poor health for the past few years, said her niece, Mona Sherrill of San Juan Capistrano. She had been experiencing kidney problems stemming from diabetes and had been undergoing kidney dialysis for several months before her death, Sherrill said. She had also recently undergone open-heart surgery.

She was one of nine children of Gertrude and Damian Rios, and was born Jan. 27, 1913, in the Rios Adobe, considered the oldest home in California and still occupied by the Rios family. The adobe is in the historical Los Rios district of this city, named after her family.

Foy was a longtime member of the Capistrano Women’s Club and a past president of the Capistrano Indian Council. As part of the Indian council, she gave demonstrations of Indian art and Indian herb medicines at local schools, said her nephew, Stephen M. Rios of San Juan Capistrano.

“Her basket weaving in particular was a vehicle by which she kept our culture and our heritage alive,” Rios said.

Members of the Juaneno band will perform a special American Indian dance in Foy’s honor in the courtyard of Mission San Juan Capistrano on March 19, which is St. Joseph’s Day, said David Belardes of San Juan Capistrano, the Juaneno tribal chairman.

“The sad thing about our elderly dying is that their death means losing the knowledge about the old Juaneno ways and traditions. She was very proud of her heritage and her family’s longevity here,” Belardes said. “She was always active as a Juaneno and very much into our folklore.”

In 1986, Foy was given the title of matriarch by the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society, of which she was also a member.

“It’s an honorary title, usually given to someone who is among the oldest living people born and raised in San Juan Capistrano,” said Pamela Gibson, a local author and historian.

Foy was widowed twice, first by Joe Hessen and later by Glenn Foy. She is survived by five of her six children, including Joanne Waale of Newport Beach and Judy Jones and Juliana Lorton, both of Santa Ana; sons Jerry Hessen of Santa Ana and Joseph Hessen of Rancho Cucamonga; 19 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

A rosary for Foy will recited by Martin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at St. John of Capistrano Church at Mission San Juan Capistrano.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made in her name to the Capistrano Indian Council.