* Leona R. Eglin; World Traveler
Leona Rosella Eglin, a Thousand Oaks resident and world traveler, died Sunday. She was 95.
Eglin was born March 8, 1904, in Escanaba, Mich. In 1932, she married World War I veteran Elmer Eglin, and lived in Oaklawn, Ill. They had been married 39 years when Elmer died in 1971. In 1990, Leona moved to Thousand Oaks to be closer to her two daughters.
She began traveling the world in the early 1960s, aboard the Queen Mary. Barbara Gieschen, her daughter, recalled a trip where Eglin was locked in a Siberian hospital and not released until the next morning. Another occasion found Eglin in New Guinea waiting all day for a pilot who never arrived because he had the day off.
“She loved to travel, and she was a very fun-loving person,” Gieschen said. When friends came to visit Eglin, Gieschen said, they would look at pictures of the many places Eglin visited.
In addition to her husband, Eglin was preceded in death by daughter Beverly Penwitt and grandson Larry Gieschen.
In addition to Barbara Gieschen, of Thousand Oaks, Eglin is survived by six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Pierce Bros. Griffin Mortuary, Thousand Oaks. Msgr. Michael Bunny will officiate. Burial will be at Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Memorial Park, Westlake Village.
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