Maria Ines Olguin

Maria Ines Olguin was born on May 24th, 1931 in Buin, Chile in South America. She grew up a sharecropper’s daughter on a farm that grew fruit for wine making. One of nine children, living was hard but the tender love she shared with her adopted father supplied years of happy memories. When she was a teenager she moved to the capital city, Santiago to live with her Aunt Laura. This would be another deep and important relationship for her. She learned to sew professionally and thrived.

In the early 1960s opportunity knocked on her door and she ended up in Washington, D.C. as a domestic and dressmaker for a diplomat. These early days in the United States were filled with explorations of self-sufficiency and freedom. She often recounted how the day she became an American Citizen was the proudest day of her life. She worked at home before at-home businesses were the thing. She worked at Saks Fifth Avenue and then Woodward & Lothrop as a seamstress and dressmaker, specializing in wedding dresses.

She raised her daughter, Ivonne Carolina in Washington, D.C. and then moved to Hyattsville, MD in 1978. Her home life was filled with friends, good food, Chilean wine, dogs, cats and her garden! A determined woman all her life, she had her way and lived in her Hyattsville home until just a few months before her passing.

She let go of this world and joined God (and all of her pets) in heaven on Monday, November 29, 2021. I’m sure they are having a garden party every day!!

Visitation and funeral service will be held at Gasch’s Funeral Home on Monday, December 6, 2021 beginning at 10AM. Prayer service to begin at 12pm. Procession to Fort Lincoln Cemetery for her burial will begin at 1pm.