Elaine Viegas, Records Manager for several of the most prominent U.S. national leaders of the past five decades, died on April 27, 2025, after a valiant battle against cardiopulmonary disease resulting from rheumatic fever contracted as a child. She was 82. After her retirement, she wrote for the San Francisco Bay Times, which is co-published by her daughter, Jennifer Viegas.
Born on December 24, 1942, in the Hurricane Creek wilderness area of Davenport, Virginia, she was raised in a remote, mountainous part of Appalachia. The region was so treacherous that local Native American tribes such as the Shawnee, Monacan, and Cherokee rejected it for permanent settlement. It was instead part of their hunting grounds and the groups would at times intermarry, such that a few of her distant relatives were Native American. Her ancestors had settled in this region since at least the early 1700s, originating primarily from Scotland and Northeast England.
Her parents, Ezekiel Bernard Farmer and Minnie Lilly Ratliff, both came from longstanding farming families. Her father built the home he and his wife shared by hand with the help of neighbors. To earn extra money, he worked as a coal miner. It was dangerous work with few protections, and he eventually developed coal workers’ pneumoconiosis caused by lung scarring due to inhalation of coal dust.
As was the norm then for many farming families, the couple had several children, 12, with three (Otis, Ralph, and Marlene) dying in childhood. Elaine was the youngest member of the family, which was extremely poor. When she contracted rheumatic fever as a youth, the illness was not properly treated and led to permanent cardiopulmonary problems requiring multiple difficult surgeries throughout her life. She had an extraordinary will to live, however, and possessed tremendous mental fortitude. With her vivid Wedgewood blue eyes, radiant smile, naturally wavy lush hair, and always trim figure, she was renowned for her beauty as well as for her inherent grace and style. Several artists asked to paint her over the years, and at least one work still exists as a treasured family heirloom.
She attended the two-room Boyd School in Davenport, where children from grades one through seven were taught and the building was heated solely by a potbelly stove. She next attended Council High School in the nearby town of Council, where as a senior of the Class of 1962 she earned the school’s then highest honor, “Miss Senior,” in recognition of her intelligence, beauty, kindness, and sense of humor.
The decline of farming and traditional industries caused many of her generation to leave Appalachia in search of a better life. After graduation she worked office jobs in Washington, D.C., before making a bold leap to move to California. There, her older sister, Hilma, had previously moved after an epic road trip in a Beverly Hillbillies-type car crammed with multiple relatives.
In California she worked as a telephone operator, which required use of a manual switchboard a/la Lily Tomlin’s famous “Ernestine” character. In 1964, she married LeRoy Kenneth Viegas in Reno, Nevada. He was a third generation San Franciscan who then lived in Oakland’s Fruitvale District. Although warned about the risks of pregnancy due to her heart condition, she had always wanted to be a mother and gave birth to one child, her daughter Jennifer.
She was a selfless, caring, and dedicated mother who taught her daughter to read at age 4 and dutifully picked her up from school—from kindergarten through her daughter’s senior year in high school—parked front and center in an enormous Buick handed down from her mother-in-law. She studied with numerous professional chefs throughout the Bay Area, adding her own unique, elegant touch to dishes and meals that became legendary.
Smart and ambitious, she was among the first in the 1970s to study computer literacy at Vista College, which later became Berkeley City College. She subsequently began what would become three decades of service with the federal government. After a difficult divorce in 1990 and positions with the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of the Treasury, and Department of Energy, she capped off her career at the General Services Administration. There, as Records Manager for regions 9, 10, and Laguna Niguel, she managed the records of individuals such as former President Ronald Reagan, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Dianne Feinstein. She was closest to Senator Feinstein, who was always kind and complimentary and genuinely committed to supporting other women who were underrepresented in federal positions.
A heart surgery led to epilepsy, which forced her to retire in late 2016. Possessing a strong work ethic, she never wanted to retire and always desired to be of service to others. During her rare downtime moments, she enjoyed spending time with family pets—both dogs and cats gravitated to her and seemed transfixed by her warm, affectionate voice and demeanor—road trips to the central coast of California, reading and watching mysteries (Vera and Poirot on PBS were her favorites), recipe development, drinking Peet’s decaffeinated lattes, going to the Cliff House over the years before it closed and visiting with the talented and welcoming Chef Kevin Weber and his team, viewing films and art exhibit documentaries at the Elmwood Theatre in Berkeley, and listening to music by Elvis Presley, whose Virginia relatives lived in her family’s community. She never forgot the moment when she first saw the charismatic performer who gave hope to her and many others in her region desiring to break out of poverty.
She wrote for the San Francisco Bay Times, often reviewing products featured at the Winter Fancy Food Show that she attended for several years with her daughter.
She is survived by her daughter Jennifer Viegas, her sister Hilma Farmer Stuby (now the family matriarch at age 92), and numerous nieces, nephews, and grands. She was preceded in death by her siblings Arnold Farmer, Darnell “Bill” Farmer, Harold Farmer, Jack “Hillard” Farmer, Mildred Farmer Mitchell, Betty Farmer O’Quinn, and Elden “Lyal” Farmer. Woody “Boone” Farmer, a cousin who later became a professional wrestler, was adopted as a child by her parents. Reflecting the family’s can-do spirit after enduring great challenges, he owned and operated Bay Area Wrestling and in 1983 famously carried a piano on his back up Lombard Street in San Francisco.
Her burial site, which will also be the site for her daughter’s burial upon her passing, is at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland below the family plot of architect Julia Morgan that is marked on maps of the grounds. Visitors are welcome at this expansive verdant cemetery designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The mother-daughter Viegas plot is located down the cemetery’s main avenue, up the hill past the avenue’s fourth fountain, and at path level below the Morgan marker. The family requests that donations be made to Cat Town in Oakland (https://www.cattownoakland.org/), the Lindsay Wildlife Experience (https://lindsaywildlife.org/), and the American Heart Association (https://www.heart.org/). A celebration of the life of Elaine Viegas is being planned.
In Memoriam
Published on June 26, 2025
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