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A memorial service for Frances Blair Awbrey will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, at the Saratoga Federated Church chapel, 20390 Park Place in Saratoga. Ms. Awbrey died Dec. 21 in Gustavus, Alaska, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 50.
Ms. Awbrey, a fifth-generation Californian, was born in Berkeley and moved to Atherton when she was in the eighth grade. She graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School, and attended the University of Puget Sound, the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and the Cordon Bleu in Paris.
Her skill as a chef was her passport to a lifetime of traveling adventures, say family members. Among the places she lived in were San Francisco, London, Gstaad, Madrid, Marbella, New York City, Nantucket, Anchorage, and San Miguel de Allende.
Ms. Awbrey migrated to the small town of Gustavus on Glacier Bay in Alaska, where she became part of the community. She spent most winters in Mexico, driving the miles from Alaska to Mexico with her dog, Aria.
She was an avid fly fisherman and a formidable Scrabble player, and she enjoyed playing the cello, say family members. She volunteered at the Mission Queretaro, serving the Otomi people of central Mexico.
Surviving Ms. Awbrey are her parents, William and Mary Stuart Awbrey of Atherton; brother Craig Awbrey of Saratoga; and sister Lisa Awbrey of San Francisco.
Memorials in her name may be made to Breast Cancer Connections, 390 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306; KARA, 457 Kingsley Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301; or the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, 795 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94301.
