Gloria Mendonsa
Gloria Elizabeth Mendonsa was finally reunited with her children, Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa and Asher River Mendonsa (AKA Asher Love) around 1 a.m. on June 5, 2025, in her home with her husband, Andy, her brother, Rich Moore (Jan Moore), brother-in-law, Don Mendonsa (Jill Mendonsa), nephew, Andrew Mendonsa, dear friend, Jennifer Peoples and her much loved corgi, Lukas Cork.
Gloria’s life began on August 2, 1959 in La Paz, Bolivia, South America. At the time Gloria’s parents, Richard and Mary Moore were serving as missionaries with World Gospel Mission in a small gold mining village located in Guanay on the Tipuani River but the hospital in La Paz, 145 miles away, provided much more modern best practices delivery services. La Paz (12k ft. above sea level) from Guanay (1900 ft. above sea level) they had to travel along the most notoriously dangerous “Death Road, a 43-mile section christened the most dangerous road in the world in 1995.”
In December 2024 Gloria and Andy’s love and commitment for each other reached the 40-year mark. Having lost both of their adult children along the way, the last 20 years along this road they traveled together came to feel more like a road of death and sorrow than one of joy and peace.
Gloria always seemed to approach life in the way an artist approaches an empty canvas with paintbrushes and paints, but her paintbrush was a gardening spade and her paint was the soil and seeds that she planted in it. And over the span of 35 years she turned what was once weeds and overgrown brambles of saw briars and poison ivy into an Eden of her own creation. And inside her 1920’s house that was in significant disrepair when first acquired, her innate sense of color and design for mixing modern with antiques, fine art with folk art, oriental rugs with hard wood and slate floors and so much more, became her greatest masterpiece; A home for her family, and a welcoming place, even a sanctuary for everyone who entered regardless of how short or long their visit.
On Saturday June 21, 2025, at 11 a.m., friends and family will be coming together to share in the life that was Gloria Mendonsa’d that God in his grace and mercy chose the time of its completion. We will gather at the Church of the First Born, 3418 St. Elmo Ave., Chattanooga, TN., which will also be live streamed through the Church of the First Born’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ChurchoftheFirstbornTN.
There will be a light meal provided for friends and family immediately following the service in the fellowship hall of Silverdale Baptist Church St. Elmo just off the parking lot level behind the church.
For those who want to honor the life that Gloria lived these non-profits are ones that were dear to Gloria’s heart:
Shepherd Spinal & Brain Injury Center, 2020 Peachtree Rd NW, Atlanta, GA 30309, https://shepherd.org/, where our son Asher was a patient for both spine and brain injury recovery and rehab for over six months.
The Caretta Research Project, P.O. Box 9841, Savannah, GA 31412, a non-profit that Hadrienne was very passionate about, and volunteered for a week every summer. After she was killed in an automobile accident in 2005 her friends raised money and established a scholarship fund for students. Follow this link to her memorial page: https://www.carettaresearchproject.org/memorials/hadrienne- mendonsa
SPLASH Youth Arts Workshop, P.O. Box 3617, Chattanooga, TN 37404, https://splashyouthartsworkshop.org/. When Gloria was first admitted to Memorial Hospital on June 22 there was a wing/hallway near her room with an exhibit of the art created by kids in the SPLASH Art Workshop that Gloria was deeply moved by (as was I). 2 of the paintings that stood out in particular we were surprised had been done by 2 different 4 year olds.
Flowers were Gloria’s passion and even obsession, but she is enjoying varieties of flowers now that none of us can even imagine their extraordinary beauty. Instead of giving flowers, because Andy already has more flowers to care for in the Eden she left behind than he knows how to care for, consider giving flowers to someone else you know needing a lift in their life and let them know that Gloria sent them.