Aileen Weber was born on March 11, 1921 to Gerald and Irene Cardinal McIntyre in Floydada, Texas. Her father died shortly after her sister, Robertine, was born. Her mother remarried, adding three boys, John, James and Lester to the family. Their first big move was from her grandparents' farm into town.

Aileen injured her right leg in an accidental fall, but learned to walk again at the Shriner's Children's hospital.

Living through the Great Depression taught her to save everything, string, fabric, and bits of food frozen for a rainy day. Aileen never threw anything away that might be useful later. She grew flowers, learned to sew and created handicrafts from whatever was at hand. Art lessons at age 14 helped Aileen express herself through oil and watercolor painting, another lifelong hobby.

In 1939, Aileen's family moved to California. Aileen joined the Leuzinger High School band her senior year, playing the slide trombone without reading a note of music. She enjoyed her first kiss, the senior prom, and a job at the USO, a place where soldiers and sailors went to dance, meet people and see movies. It's also where she met her future husband, Larry. When Larry was deployed, they continued the romance by mail. Larry sent a two-dollar bill with each letter. After they married, that money became a down payment on their first home. Larry also sent an engagement ring wrapped in a whole roll of toilet paper.

Larry and Aileen married in 1945, buying their first home in Hawthorne, California, and later moving to the house at 845 Grevillea Avenue.

Besides raising five children and caring for a t least four foster kinds, Aileen found time to collect stamps, produce all kinds of artwork, and teaching painting and decorative arts. She loved reading and writing letters and poems. Always thorough, she left no book untouched without highlighting many passages carefully highlighted in bright yellow.

Aileen was a prayerful woman, caring deeply about her family and community. She belonged to St. Joseph Church's Woman's Council, Mission Circle, charismatic prayer group, and the Southwest Traditional Artists Society.

By 1982, Aileen's kids were grown and out of the house. When she and her husband separated, she turned to another lifelong love for Christ and his Church, becoming a Secular Franciscan. She worked at a battered women's shelter, and after the death of her husband, became a caretaker of elderly women at Leisure World, Seal Beach. She moved to Indiana in 1999 to enjoy watching her youngest grandchildren grow up.

When macular degeneration took her eyesight, she still could pray for the family and write poetry. Here is one of her poems:

I've been blessed sharing with you.
Hope you've been blessed too.
May we meet again someday as we travel on our way?
Pray for me, I'll pray for you.
May God bless all the things we do?

She always signed her writings, "Prayerfully in love, Aileen Weber."