“I think she used some of the money from the house to travel,” Rancher said. “She was like, ‘Well, I’ve got equity, so I might as well use it.’”
The two argued over how smart a move that was, but Rancher recalls conceding.
“She did it her way,” she said.
Well-Being
Sullivan, a former master Child Protective Services social worker, was one of 50 area seniors featured in The OBSERVER’s “The Skin We’re In” special edition published in 2025. In it, she shared the joys of “living in her purpose” and the belief that age is simply a number.
“What I’m realizing about my mother is how much she was so full of life,” Rancher said. “Unfortunately, at the end, she couldn’t talk and that’s what drove me crazy because she was always talking and always so animated. People say, ‘May she rest in peace’ and I say, ‘I don’t think she will, because she has so much more to do.’”
Sullivan thought her mother would live well into her 90s, given her health-conscious nature and the fact that her own mother made it to age 93. Sullivan discovered yoga while living in Berkeley in the 1970s.
“She loved hot yoga, yin yoga, yoga nidra,” Rancher said. “She loved mindfulness practice and she still did that as she got older.”
Toward the end of her life, she exclusively practiced yoga nidra, often described as “sleep yoga” because it is performed lying down.
“She would do that online and the woman who led that created some guides for her as she was transitioning to kind of help her breathe,” Rancher said. “She’s got a great community of people.”
Sullivan’s community included her beloved Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She was a proud member of the Stockton Alumnae Chapter. Having joined in 1988, she prided herself on never missing a national convention in almost 40 years.