The Cupertino Courier
Community
Obituaries
Cupertino school district's first nurse is remembered
By LISA SIBLEY
Eva Regnart Wasson died at her Cupertino home May 13. She was 94. The third daughter of Herbert William Regnart and Anna Gagliasso Regnart of Cupertino, she was born Feb. 3, 1912, at the original family home in Regnart Canyon in the Cupertino foothills.
Her surviving sisters, Hazel Regnart Fretwell, 95, and Alice Regnart Brown, 91, recently reminisced about Wasson and the early days in the Regnart Canyon, including the time Molly the horse bolted and the whole family jumped off the runaway wagon.
"Eva fell on her head in a patch of nettles and got a concussion," said her niece, Gail Fretwell Hugger.
As a youngster, Wasson joined her sisters and brothers and the rest of the canyon children in walking the 3 miles from their home in the hills down to the original Lincoln School on Prospect and Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. When the dirt road was too muddy to walk, their father would take them partway in the wagon. But when they reached the main road, they had to walk the rest of the way.
Wasson was like a second mother to their brothers, according to the sisters.
"Uncle Donald used to tease the heck out of the family chickens. Eva would be furious with him and in response, he'd say she was fat, which she wasn't," Hugger said.
When oldest sister Margaret started dating her first boyfriend, Jack, the two went for an evening walk down the road. Wasson and Brown mischievously followed, singing "Moonlight and Roses" until Margaret yelled at them and said she'd tell on them. They both laughed and kept singing, and when Margaret told her mother, she laughed ,too.
After graduating from Fremont High School in 1930, Wasson went into training to become a nurse at the old O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. A young fellow named Ernie Wasson thought Eva was a very pretty young lady and decided to impress her by climbing over the wall surrounding the hospital garden. She and her fellow nursing students were quite surprised.
They married in 1932, while the Great Depression was in full swing. Their wedding breakfast was peaches and crackers.
The couple had two sons, Donald and Roger. When the boys were young, the family traveled extensively in their work with the Jehovah's Witnesses, living in a hand-built trailer. They eventually moved back to Cupertino, where Ernie Wasson went into the insurance business.
"The whole family all lived in a little line on Bubb Road," Hugger said. "With all the orchards, it was a great place for a kid to grow up."
Wasson became the first nurse with the Cupertino school district--a position she held for many years, according to Hugger.
"You could dispense aspirin and things like that in those days," Hugger said. "I don't even think you can do that anymore. ... She took care of little scrapes and bumps."
In addition to her nursing skills, Wasson was known as an artist.
"She was really quite talented," Hugger said. "She painted many scenes of beautiful waterfalls, trees, mountains and rivers, which she shared with family members."
In 1982, the Wassons celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with a large family gathering and a mariachi band. Five months later, they helped Hazel and Jim Fretwell celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary with another large gathering at Valley Church of Cupertino.
Ernie Wasson died previously, as did her oldest sister, Margaret Regnart Long, eldest son Don and daughter-in-law Linda. Survivors include sisters Fretwell, of Cupertino, and Brown, who splits her time between Oregon and Cupertino; brothers Herbert Regnart, 87, of Cupertino, and Donald Regnart, 82, who lives near Redding. Her son Roger and his wife Lillian still reside in Cupertino. Wasson had six grandchildren: Victoria, Stephen, Tris, Donna, Ross and Greg along with six great-grandchildren.
A memorial service was held May 20 at Kingdom Hall in Cupertino.
