Woman Dies at 103 After a Life in Santa Ana

Ethel M. Coffman, who moved to Santa Ana with her family from Indiana in 1908 and was a fixture in the community, died in her sleep Friday. She was 103.

Coffman was a living reference source for the city’s history. The 1915 graduate of Santa Ana High School returned to her alma mater in November to tell students about her life and the changes she had witnessed, from the days when people hitched their horses at church to the advent of computers at the nursing home where she lived for the past five years.

She told the students that each decade had something to commend it--that she could choose no favorite time.

“They were all good,” she said.

Until moving to Town & Country Manor after diabetes made it hard for her to get around, Coffman lived on her own in the house on North Freeman that she had bought in 1939. She was a favorite among residents, known for sharing bags of potato chips and her knowledge of trees and birds.

Margaret Beyer, 77, of Santa Ana remembered her friend of 50 years as a “gracious, lovely lady who always cared for others.”

“Ethel always lived in the present,” Beyer said Wednesday. “She didn’t live in the past.”

In recent months, Coffman’s once sharp memory had begun to fade, friends said, and her health had declined.

“She died a beautiful death,” Beyer said. “She just stopped breathing.”

Coffman, who was unmarried, made a life on her own when few women were independent. She lived for many years with her twin sister, Esther, and younger sister, Mary. She worked at Rankin Dry Goods from 1917 until the store closed in 1963, a job in which she took enormous pride.

Coffman sang in the choir at First United Methodist Church in Santa Ana for 80 years and held nearly every church office at one time or another. She served on the board of Goodwill Industries of Orange County off and on since 1935.

A viewing will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary in Santa Ana. Funeral services are planned for 10 a.m. Saturday at the Methodist church, 609 N. Spurgeon St., Santa Ana. Those wishing to make donations in Coffman’s memory may do so to Goodwill Industries of Orange County.