In Loving Memory of
Cecilia Anita Franklin
1941 – 2022
On Saturday, December 3, 2022, Cecilia Anita Franklin, beloved mother, passed away at age eighty-one. An accomplished seamstress and business owner, Cecilia graduated Newark New Jersey’s South Side High School, class of 1958, at 17 years of age. She attended business school for two years and then married. In 1963 the family, which included a two-year old daughter, drove cross country in a 1959 green Chevrolet Impala relocating in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Born in Fort Myers, Florida, to Willie Albert Jones and Dorothy Estella (nee May), Cecilia was the oldest of seven siblings. The family moved to Newark in 1952. As one of four sisters who inherited keen needle work talent from their maternal grandmother, Gertrude, and mother, Cecilia honed her skills on a 1969 Bernina Record 730 that she purchased with a down payment and $50 installments. Her daughter learned to sew on this machine and it remains in their collection to this day.
In addition to being a homemaker, Cecilia worked for many years as a bookkeeper and accounting supervisor for the University of California, Berkeley. In 1991, she opened Sew Images at its first location on Grand Avenue, Oakland. At the most recent location, the dealership became an integral part of the Piedmont Avenue Merchants Association and is notable for being a longstanding, woman and minority-owned business. At Sew Images, Cecilia sold premium machines, provided custom machine embroidery, repairs, offered personal consultations and instruction, hosted events and taught sewing classes. Her favorite classes to teach were the “Camp Sew Fun” summer courses attended by area children during summer break. Sew Images was in operation for 31 years.
Cecilia was known for her passion of spreading the “gospel and love of sewing” and was always eager to provide advice or demonstrate a difficult technique. In addition to sewing, she was fond of road trips, gadgets of all kinds and babies. However, not having been graced with grandchildren, she was lovingly attached to her daughter’s Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs, whom she considered her grandkids.
Her good-natured ribbing of everyone, take-charge attitude and bravery is sorely missed among her family and friends. Having survived three previous diagnoses of cancer, she succumbed after a valiant 18-month fight. She is survived by her daughter, Alicia Franklin (also known as Lisa), her sister Regina Jeffries, many nieces, nephews and devoted friends.
A gathering to celebrate her life will be held on Friday, January 27, 6 p.m. at Sew Images, 4172 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland. In lieu of giving flowers, the family asks that those who are able instead make a donation to a local animal fund.
