Obituary — Ida Schwarz Pace of Concord, CA

Ida Schwarz Pace
Mar. 16, 1921 — Jan. 5, 2023

Ida Schwarz Pace died peacefully in her apartment on Jan. 5, 2023, in Concord, Calif. where she resided the last eleven years of her life. She was 101 years young.

She is survived by her five children, Antoinette Rockwell, Douglas Pace, Steven Pace, Joseph Pace and Bernadette Norris, her seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Ida also had many nieces, nephews and cousins who survive her.

Ida Schwarz Pace was born on Mar. 16, 1921, in Park, Kansas. She and her twelve siblings grew up in Park where her parents tended a wheat farm. Ida’s mother moved each of her children to Northern California when they finished high school. Ida moved to Marin County, Calif. in 1941. In 1944 she moved to Berkley where she worked for Standard Oil.

She met Anthony Pace and they married in 1948. In 1949 they began their family. In 1954 the family moved to Belmont, Calif., where Ida was a mother and homemaker. In 1966 she began to get part-time work outside her home and continued to do secretarial jobs until her retirement at age 70.

In 1978 Ida moved to various bay area locations to be closer to her sisters, who were very important to her. She actively worked with two of her siblings to produce the book “Kansas to California” describing their early life and how they came to the Bay Area. After her sister Florence died, Ida settled in Concord.

Ida often visited her siblings who had relocated to the Bay Area, celebrating holidays and birthdays with them. She enjoyed the annual large family Octoberfest gathering. In her later years Ida traveled with her children and grandchildren in California and throughout the west. She especially enjoyed a trip to Germany with her brothers and sisters. She also visited Kansas, reconnecting with cousins and friends with whom she grew up. She will be remembered by friends and family as a devout Catholic and a loving, kind and patient person.