Loving Couples to Be Missed

It was their many differences--in culture, faith and ethnicity--that brought and kept Effat and Virginia Mansour together, relatives of the Irvine couple said Saturday. With their differences came an invincible strength, one that was powerfully contagious.

“It was their strong love for one another and for family that pulled everybody else together,” said Ahmed Mansour, the couple’s nephew. “You can’t imagine how strong it was. They were a magnet for all of us.”

Ten Orange County residents died in the crash off Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island two weeks ago, and four of them were eulogized Saturday. The mysterious crash continues to intrigue the nation because no one knows why the EgyptAir jet plummeted into the Atlantic, and the clues so far point to possible human causes.

The passengers from Orange County reflected the area’s religious diversity. The Mansours’ memorial service was conducted at the Crystal Cathedral for both the Christian and Muslim faiths. In Aliso Viejo, Ulrick and Dorothy Foth were remembered during services held at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the service for the Mansours, dozens of family members and friends recalled the strength of their love with tears and laughter, trying, they said, to take comfort in the fact that the couple were together in the end.

“I am so blessed that my parents had such a wonderful life,” said Amira Mansour, the couple’s daughter. “They loved each other so deeply . . . and they were able to rest together always.”

Meanwhile, nearly 500 friends and relatives of the Foths watched a slide show of the couple’s life together, treasuring the Dana Point couple’s adventures, which ranged from mountain climbing and skiing to weddings, holidays and the births of five grandchildren.

“Mom would say it’s OK to cry a little bit, but you have to smile a lot,” Gary Foth told the congregation. “We are here to celebrate the lives of our parents.”

Smiling through his tears, the couple’s son added: “The vision I have of them, even as the plane is having trouble, is my father holding her hand, comforting her, telling her that everything will be all right.”

The victims remain lost at sea amid the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 990. Crash investigators have since found both of the plane’s “black boxes.” The contents of the flight data recorder failed to explain the cause of the tragedy, which killed all 217 people on board. The cockpit voice recorder, which was recovered by Navy divers late Saturday night, could reveal more clues.

Also lost on Flight 990 were Judith Bowman and Sheila Jaffee of Huntington Beach, Tobey Seidman of Irvine and Beverly Grant of Santa Ana.

At the Foths’ service Saturday, hundreds of friends filled the chapel and spilled into an additional room and an adjoining basketball court. Also present were relatives of Barbara and Art Peever, close friends of the Foth family who also died in the crash. The couples, friends for 40 years, were beginning a vacation together when the Boeing 767 went down.

Rick Cram recalled trips and activities the friends did together--tennis, sailing and dancing--and his voice broke as he began speaking of the friends’ collective plans.

“A New Year’s party, the Rose Parade and the ski trip in February--future plans which aren’t going to happen,” Cram said. “How can we get along without you?”

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller encouraged the loved ones of Effat and Virginia Mansour to be inspired by the couple’s commitment to each other, and especially by the way they accepted all people without passing judgment. They cared enormously about social justice and wanted people to be fair and equitable with one another, relatives said.

“We are one community, one family,” Schuller said. “Let us strive to live life like they did.”

Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, led the congregants in an Islamic prayer and reminded them to respect God’s master plan.

“To Allah we belong and to him we will return,” Siddiqi said. “In this hour of sadness, we must remember that it is God who gives us life and it is he who takes it back.”

Effat Mansour was a prominent architect and city planner who worked for the Port of Portland, Ore., and on projects in Egypt and who had served on the Irvine Planning Commission. He had planned to visit his mother, brother and two sisters in Cairo.

His wife was a retired microbiologist who had worked at Baxter Healthcare.

Neighbors recalled the Mansours as the most active, effective people in the community. They always tried to bring the neighborhood together and held a Christmas open house every year. At family reunions, the Mansours weren’t satisfied until every single relative was present, their nephew said.

Hours before they died in the crash, the Mansours sat at a table in a crowded LAX restaurant, waiting for their international departure. And, true to what relatives said was the Irvine couple’s style, they were making friends with strangers, offering to share their table with a young family that included two hungry, tired children.

They spent more than an hour together: Virginia Mansour played games with the other couple’s young daughter and drew pictures on napkins, while Effat Mansour chatted with the parents and laughed at their infant son’s antics. Relatives learned of the chance meeting days after the crash, when they received a letter of condolence from the young couple, who heard about the tragedy and immediately remembered the Mansours.

“We can all learn something from you about love,” John Heil, Virginia Mansour’s brother, said at the memorial. “We can all learn something from you about tolerance.”