Celebrating the life of our beloved Ms

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Flo was born April 25, 1936 in New York. Her parents are Mr. Carl Rottach and Ms. Harriette Pease. She has 2 brothers and 2 sisters. She lived in Florida with her mom and took care of her brother, Pete, until she was about 11 or 12. Then she lived in South Bend, Indiana with her father until her early twenties when she married Mr. Tom Plonski in 1958.

As a young adult in Indiana, Flo performed in many musicals such as South Pacific. She also studied Spanish and was immediately employed as a translator. It was well known that a job as a translator was next to impossible to obtain. However, not for Flo! She also worked for Studebaker and Notre Dame. We can't fail to mention how Flo was the one who set the trend for riding a motorscooter all over town. That wasn’t something women would do back then. However, after people saw her riding, lots of other people started riding them, too.

She is the mother of nine children. All of whom she bore naturally. (They all still take after her natural, down to earth persona.) After the first few children, she told the doctor, I don't need your help anymore; I'll let you know when I'm done delivering this one so you can do the paperwork. She has held the record at Indio hospital for the heaviest baby born as well as the second heaviest baby born. (And that naturally!)

Once Flo moved to the Palm Springs, CA area she cared for and raised all her children by herself, and at the same time managed to go back to school at College of the Desert where she obtained many degrees in Language and Music. She also went to the University of California at Irvine where she obtained her Bachelor's degree so she could do what she loved.... Teaching Spanish!

Flo had many "loves". Of course she loved her children. She also loved, as we all know, Garage Sales! Going to garage sales was her regular Saturday morning adventure. In her astute creativity, she made all things fun and adventurous! No matter what city she happened to be visiting at the time, Saturday morning meant garage sales! This of course meant that Sunday morning was for the swap meet. The swap meet was somewhere that Flo could exercise her other "love".... talking! Good thing she knew 6 languages, (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese). Some people wondered if she could even speak "puppy language" because she was known all over the Coachella Valley as "The Puppy Lady". Flo loved animals. She bred dachshunds (weenie dogs). At one time there were 26 dachshunds in her home. There was also a love in her heart for Siamese cats, Toy Fox Terriers, road runners, squirrels, and all stray animals, etc. One of her talents was spotting an animal out of the blue before any one else saw it. Sitting and watching animals play and "do their thing" was a wonderful pass time for her.

Puerto Rico was her all time much loved place on earth. Of course her wish is to care for the stray dogs there. Pavarotti was her most loved musician. Another love of hers was Astrology. This allowed her to help other people get along with each other. Relationships and friendships were very special to her even if it was someone else's relationship, she enjoyed knowing how people were communicating and loving each other.

Her kids were always blessed by her, especially at Christmas time. Flo always made Christmas a joyous time because she never failed to fill the entire house with presents. Every year there were presents in every room, on every table top, every bookshelf, all over the floor, the presents were not under the tree, the tree was under all the presents. Christmas is a very important time for her children because of the love she encouraged in all of us. Surely, all who knew her also knew of her thoughtfulness and generosity. She taught her children by inspiration and example how to love each other and be good friends.

When Flo finished her degree at UCI, she became a Spanish teacher at Palm Desert High School. Here she made many new friends and deeply impacted hundreds of young lives while doing what she loved most... Teaching Spanish. She was always an excellent teacher, and she had a sincere love for all her students. Her classroom won awards for "Best Decorated". As well as learning languages, her "kids" (at PDHS and home) also learned to love one other, virtue, to do good, to get an education, communicate with diplomacy, and to know how to survive even in troubled times. She encouraged us all to follow our dreams and gave us the freedom and unconditional love and support to become our true selves.

All of us who were impacted by her life were DEEPLY impacted. She made sure everything she did was done completely and with abundance. Because of this huge impact, there now remains a vast emptiness in our hearts that no other human can fill, only the Lord. Flo finally gets to have the love she deserves. No matter how much love we can all give her, there is not enough love on this earth to return to her as she deserves. Only the Lord is capable of giving her as much love as she is worthy.