Vonda Yvonna Petri
At age 91, Vonda passed away at home in Chelsea on August 23, 2023, after complications from a stroke on March 31. Her legacy is a life devoted to Christ and a heart full of love for everyone she met.
On February 23, 1952, she married her life-long mate, Nicholas Petri, Jr., known to all as ‘Pete’. Together they lived and worked in Michigan until Pete’s retirement when they became Floridians for more than 25 years.
Some of mom’s favorite memories were about saving to buy her first automobile, a blue Hudson, selling Amway, Tupperware, Beeline Fashions, and Queen’s Way to Fashion, becoming a lifeguard and then a hairdresser before working in the Van Buren school system where she started in the lunchroom and finished as the Administrative Assistant to the Superintendent of Schools. Her crowning achievement was fulfilling a life-long desire to become a nurse and completing her LPN education and licensure at age 54.