Loyda Solis Marquez

Loyda Brito Solís de Márquez died on 17 February 2025. Services will be held this Sunday 23 March at 3:00 pm at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara, 21E Constance Ave.

Loyda was born in the city of San Luís Potosí, SLP Mexico on 13 Feb 1932, the famous mining town in central Mexico. In 1945, her father, a baptist pastor, took a call to serve at the (then) Primera Iglesia Bautista on 925 Santa Barbara st.(founded circa 1900 by the father of a future sister in law.) She graduated SBHS a year early and earned a BA at the SB State Teacher’s college, which became the UCSB Riviera Campus. Loyda then finished her student teaching stint and was hired at Harding Elementary School in 1954. She took a two year break in the early 1960’s to take a master’s degree in Spanish Literature at UC Berkeley. After retiring circa 1996, she spent almost 20 years with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History docents program teaching 3rd grade students on field trips from local schools in the area. She also taught in the Ladera Street Adult ESL program for several years.

Loyda was a long time member at the Botanic Garden. As early California history was a unit taught in 3rd and 4th grades, she had a passion for early California History, with all its challenges and tragedies for native peoples. She took the family to visit all 21 missions in Alta California, and some years later visited some of the asistencias near Pala during one of her annual trip to the basket weaver’s conference. She was often critical of American foreign policy having never forgotten the stories her own grandmother had told of the time during the Mexican Revolution of the 1920’s.

Her last breath was witnessed by her sons Calli and Tona, nieces, Colleen and Trisha Márquez, and friend Rev. Gordy Hess, ret. She is also survived by brother Arnaldo, sister Zarith Uhrig and their many children and grandchildren. She is preceded in death by brother Nephtalí, and her parents Miguél and Emília.