Andrea Rose Maldonado was born on March 9, 1959 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and died on Thursday, July 2, 2026 in Visalia, California. She fought breast cancer since 2021 and passed away peacefully, surrounded by family at her home.
She spent her childhood years growing up in Hopkins, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, later moving to Visalia with her family in 1973. Through the miracle of chance, she met her husband Tony Maldonado not long after, starting an over fifty-year relationship and building a family with two children, Sulema and Tony Jr.
A loving and dedicated daughter, mother, and wife, she was also an outgoing “people person” – whether in her professional or personal life.
It was effortless for her to connect and make friends with just about anyone, whether she was helping people during her career in retail, going above and beyond for her customers in her housekeeping business, or simply bargain hunting at a yard sale or department store.
It seemed as though anywhere she walked into, she would walk out with at least one new friend or acquaintance – someone who would inevitably recognize her and strike up a conversation with her somewhere else in town.
She was also an animal lover: her home always had multiple cats and at least one dog, and she helped care for lost animals on multiple occasions before returning them to their homes.
After her cancer diagnosis in 2021, she chose to privately fight her cancer alongside incredible doctors and oncologists at Sequoia Regional Cancer Center and Cedars-Sinai. They helped her fight as long as possible while keeping her quality of life high.
Even while she battled cancer, including chemotherapy and operations, she still kept her body in motion as a housekeeper as a way to keep her strength up – even acting as a caregiver for some of her older housekeeping customers.
Her generosity, spirit and grit knew no bounds. The world is a less joyful place with her loss.
She was preceded in death by her mother, Helen Wilson; her father, Daniel Lopez; and her siblings, Burnell Hendrickson, Daniel “Moose” Lopez Jr, and Rosalinda Folks.
She is survived by her husband, Tony; her children, Sulema and Tony Jr; her sister, Louella LeBlanc; and her nieces and nephews, Aaron Maldonado, Angie LeBlanc, Daniel E. Jay, E.J. LeBlanc, Lisa Folks, and Tyler LeBlanc; as well as her beloved cats and her beloved dog, “Chica.”