Feb. 14th, 2006 08:28 am
Goodbye, Leona.
I know some of my readers knew her and are not on
elaryn's LJ list, so:
Leona Louise Talley, friend and one-time Starbase Cosgrove member, left the mortal world on Saturday, February 11th, 2006.
From
elaryn's tribute (this is only a small excerpt):
Leona, like me, favoured the Romulans ("Rihannsu!", we'd shout together) when it came to Star Trek, and I remember sitting with her and discussing the shoddy treatment our favorite Trek aliens received from the fans and the show alike.
Like Elaryn, I hadn't seen Leona in years. I think, in fact, I last saw her more than a decade ago. She was, however, in my thoughts often, for I always did like her, and I often wished I knew how to get back in touch with that marvelous lady.
Thei'khaiell ssuin hw'aenevha, Leona.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Leona Louise Talley, friend and one-time Starbase Cosgrove member, left the mortal world on Saturday, February 11th, 2006.
From
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
How to describe Leona? Physically, she was small - no taller than five feet. We used to jokingly trade "insults" about our respective heights: she would call me "thyroid case," and I would call her "midget." Throughout her teens and twenties, she tended to be plump. Her skin was the colour of milk chocolate, with very dark brown hair that curled tightly in its natural state. She usually wore her hair very short. She had an elegant sense of fashion and, when able, would dress like a 1940's film star, usually favouring high heels to offset her lack of height.
Leona disliked most of the terms used to describe "people of colour." Even that particular phraseology, "people of colour," would have made her laugh. "Don't we all have a colour?" She would say that she was not actually "black", since her skin was brown, nor was she "African", as her most recent ancestors were quite American, thank you. She felt that many of the more common ethnic labels were rather silly and cited her own ancestry as being, in part, a mixture French, Creole, Irish and Indian, to name a few and refused to allow herself to be pigeon-holed into any one of them or defined by the colour of her skin.
Leona, like me, favoured the Romulans ("Rihannsu!", we'd shout together) when it came to Star Trek, and I remember sitting with her and discussing the shoddy treatment our favorite Trek aliens received from the fans and the show alike.
Like Elaryn, I hadn't seen Leona in years. I think, in fact, I last saw her more than a decade ago. She was, however, in my thoughts often, for I always did like her, and I often wished I knew how to get back in touch with that marvelous lady.
Thei'khaiell ssuin hw'aenevha, Leona.