- Date Of Birth: November 19, 1923
- Date Of Death: January 16, 2016
- State: Illinois
Isabel Rubin de Celis, 92, of Jacksonville died Jan. 16, 2016, at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Ill.
She was born Nov. 19, 1923, in La Paz, Bolivia, South America, the daughter of the Rev. Moises and Maria-Luisa (Phillips) Merubia. She married Hugo A. Rubin de Celis in 1949, and he preceded her in death in 2004.
She is survived by three children, Pablo (Betty) Rubin de Celis, David (Alison) Rubin de Celis, and Isabel (Wendell) Sheeley, all of Jacksonville; grandchildren Rachel (Ben) Jackson of Springfield, Samuel Sheeley of Hallsville, Texas, Barrett (Catherine) Sheeley of Jacksonville, Adrianna Rubin de Celis of Carbondale, Eva Rubin de Celis of Dayton, Ohio, and Maria-Luisa and Carlos Rubin de Celis of Jacksonville; and five great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by two infant sons and two brothers, Henry Merubia of Cochabamba, Bolivia, and the Rev. Alberto Merubia of Austin, Texas.
Mrs. Rubin de Celis was very proud of her heritage as the daughter of missionaries who founded the first Methodist Church in Bolivia and co-founded a college preparatory school and a medical clinic. She was raised primarily in La Paz and Cochabamba, Bolivia, and as a young child accompanied her parents on mission trips to Costa Rica and Southern California. After graduating from high school at the American Institute in La Paz, she trained to become a registered nurse at Bethany Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, graduating in 1945. She subsequently returned to Bolivia, where her American training helped earn her the position of director of nursing at the Methodist Hospital in La Paz. She immigrated to the United States with her family in 1955, settling in Evanston, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. She worked in the Chicago area for many years: in Evanston at Evanston and St. Francis hospitals, and in Chicago at Belmont Community Hospital and La Clinica Las Antillas in Humboldt Park. She retired in 2003. Prior to her retirement, she returned to Bolivia on several mission trips with her husband. She was devoted to her family, especially her grandchildren. Although she was a U.S. resident, she retained a life-long love for her native Bolivia.
