Eileen F. Kitchen; ‘Person of Tremendous Stories’

Eileen F. Kitchen, a retired department store worker living in Newbury Park, has died. She was 101.

Kitchen was born in Ireland. Both her parents died when she was a young girl. She lived in an orphanage, but in her teens she immigrated to Canada as an indentured servant. She worked as a housekeeper on a farm in the Toronto area until her period as a servant ended. Later she became a hat maker. In Canada, she married, and the couple moved to the Los Angeles area in the 1920s.

Kitchen worked for the J.W. Robinson department store in Los Angeles, in both sales and accounting. She retired after more than 10 years with the company, and lived for many years in San Gabriel. The last years of her life were spent at a retirement home in Newbury Park.

“She was a person of tremendous stories, and very prayerful,” said her grandson, Richard Sexton.

She is survived by a daughter, Lorraine Sexton, of Oxnard; son Robert Kitchen, of Wrightwood; 18 grandchildren and more than 50 great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at Pierce Brothers Griffin Mortuary in Thousand Oaks at 7 p.m. Monday. Donations may be sent to Mary Health of the Sick , 2929 Theresa Drive, Newbury Park, 91320.