Josephine Chappel
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Josephine Chappel, who owned Sunnyvale's first beauty shop on S. Murphy Avenue in the mid-1920s, died Nov. 29 of a heart attack. She was 85.
Born Josephine Stanich, Chappel moved to Sunnyvale in 1918 from Globe, Ariz., with her parents and seven brothers and sisters.
Her father, a miner and stonemason, and her mother emigrated from Croatia.
Chappel met her husband, Ralph, at an Army camp in the area now occupied by Washington Park.
Chappel's daughter, Kathy Hughes, remembers her mother's sense of humor most of all.
"She was always smiling and always joking around and concerned if someone wasn't feeling good. She was the one who was always full of laughter. She was a very simple lady who always wanted to make someone smile," Hughes said.
Chappel lived with Hughes for seven years before moving into Hylond Healthcare Center.
Donna Parker, recreation service director, said Josephine would always tease the staff and compliment both staff and residents on their hairstyles.
"She would read our palms and tell us how many children we would have. She was good-natured and was always joking around. We miss her a lot because she was always smiling," Parker said.
Hughes remembered one Halloween when her mother sat out on the porch in a witch's costume, and Margie Miller, Chappel's other daughter, recalled the time her mother dressed up in a Santa suit and leaned out an attic window for the neighborhood kids to see.
"Most of the kids were scared and started crying," said Miller, with a laugh.
Chappel worked for many years at Libby's Cannery.
"She almost never complained. She worked very hard," Hughes said.
Chappel loved children. She is survived by her three children, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
"When he was about 3, my son used to ride his three-wheeler over to his grandma's house to have pizza for lunch. The kids would play at her house and have GI Joes all over the rug, and she never minded. I think she liked to hear the sound of them playing," Miller said.
For Chappel, family came first. All the neighborhood kids came to her house, Hughes said. She wasn't too much of a disciplinarian with her kids, Hughes said.
"She probably should have been more tough, but she didn't like that part of it," Hughes said.
While she was living on her own, she would have her family over for dinner every Sunday night.
"And sometimes she would come to my house and she'd turn the corner and twirl her cane like Charlie Chaplin," Miller said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 18, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.