Remembering Sherry Arnold

Leslie Arnold did not know the woman storming off of the production floor at Sweinhart Electric, but he watched her leave.

It was 1973 and nearly 20 years before the two would meet again, before they would fall in love, before they would get married.

Leslie — who goes by "Les" — was working at Sweinhart's. Sherry came in for an interview.

"They wanted her to type out a manual on a little corner desk on the production floor," Les said.

Sherry was offered the job but was less than pleased with the interviewer.

"So, she took off and left," Les said.

Sherry went to work for Atlas Energy soon after, and Les followed, by chance, 20 years later, when the two finally met.

"It just started off as friends," Les said.

At that time, Les had no idea that he had met Sherry before.

"When we met, way back," Les said, "it was kind of fate."

When the holidays arrived at the Atlas offices, Les started a yearly tradition, giving Sherry a small pumpkin. And for 18 years, well after the couple married in 1992, the annual ritual continued.

"I could give her a diamond ring and it wasn't nearly as important as a pumpkin," Les said.

Sherry placed each pumpkin atop her desk at Atlas, where she eventually became the vice president of finance and corporate administration.

And in the wake of Sherry's tragic and sudden death in a house fire last week, Sherry's son Joseph found one of the small pumpkins among her possessions.

"Every one of these little orange pumpkins turned into gourds instead of rotting," Les said. "That was just one of the very special things that we had."

Keeping time

"She always seemed ageless," Sherry's niece, Sara Bryan, said. "She stayed very current."

As Sherry's health began to decline and she was confined to her bed, Sara said Sherry found high-tech ways to reach out and stay in touch with friends.

"When Facebook came out, it was like God created it just for her," Sara said. "She could get in touch with friends from the past and she made a lot of new friends through that."

Sherry reconnected online with old friends from Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, where she graduated in 1964. 

Shortly after graduation, Sherry landed a job as secretary to the vice president at United California Bank.

"She went right out of high school to this big job," Sherry's sister, Beverly Bryan, said, "and she was really good at what she did."

After working for United California Bank, Sherry married her first husband, James Bartolotti, in 1967 and spent two years abroad in France and Germany while James was in the military.

"She worked at the officer's club there and she's always had a business mind," Beverly said.

When Sherry and James returned to the U.S., she took a job at Pacific Coast Drum Company as an office manager and later took the same position at Atlas Energy.

Around the time of that transition, in 1974, Sherry and her first husband divorced and Sherry had interviewed at Sweinhart Electric.

"We could have met 20 years earlier if that thing didn't happen with the typing," Les said. "But we probably 'lived' more than some people who are married for 60 years."

Sherry stayed with Atlas Energy for over 20 years through a number of corporate changes while also working at The Country estates in Diamond Bar, retiring around 1998.

While Beverly said that Sherry was always a California girl at heart, spending time surfing around Doheny State Beach, it was Les — who lived in Long Beach — that introduced her to boating.

"That turned into cruises to Mexico and the Bahamas," Les said, "and those were times that she really enjoyed."

Eventually, Sherry lured Les farther inland to Diamond Bar to live.

In 2005, Les and Sherry opened a clock restoration shop called Clockworks in downtown Palm Springs. Just recently, the couple was forced to close the storefront, facing a difficult economy.

'Always remember me'

"I felt kind of tacky when I wrote, 'Aunt Sherry I'm going to miss you' on her Facebook wall, but it was therapeutic," Sherry's niece Sara said.

Through Facebook and prayer, Sherry stayed in touch with friends old and new.

Patricia Ferguson, who attended high school with Sherry said in a comment on Diamond Bar Patch that she reconnected with Sherry over the internet.

"It's hard to express in words over the internet," Ferguson said, "kindness and true caring, but Sherry did just that."

Sherry's daughter-in-law, Helen Bartolotti, said she will miss a friend and confidant.

"Sherry knew about everything," Bartolotti said. "She was articulate and incredibly smart."

Bartolotti said she depended often on her mother-in-law's help.

"She would give good advice to me about how to handle (the children)," Bartolotti said, "and she was a good sounding board for me."

Her husband Les said Sherry always put others first, even while she was in bad health.

"She set everybody else's needs in front of her own and she was worried more about me taking care of her than herself," Les said. "That's the type of person that she was."

Sara, who lives in Louisiana, said visits with her aunt were few and far between, but always "jam-packed with action."

"One time, I was out visiting when I was about six and I was sad to go back to Louisiana," Sara said. "We only got to see each other once every couple of years."

As Sara was distraught about leaving, her aunt pointed to a rainbow in the sky.

"And she said, 'I know we can't be together all of the time, but whenever you see a rainbow, always remember me.'"

Sherry is survived by her husband Les, her son Joseph, her sister Beverly, and two grandchildren, Mia and Dominic.