Marie Hatch, the 97-year-old Burlingame resident who had spent the final months of her life wondering whether she'd be evicted from her longtime home, has died.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Kevin Fagan, who last month broke the story about Hatch's fight to remain in the home she had lived in since 1950, reported on her passing early Friday:
Ms. Hatch apparently died of natural causes after suffering from a severe cold for more than a week, family friends said. She had been hospitalized and Thursday evening returned home, where she succumbed.
“It’s so sad — we will miss Marie,” said Cheryl Graczewski, who lived next door and had been advocating for Ms. Hatch since she first received word in December from her landlord that she had to vacate the house.
“She was a real sweetheart. There was a lot of spirit in that woman.”
Hatch had resided in the home at 625 California Drive since 1950. That's the year that the owner of the house, Vivian Kroeze, invited her to live there and made a pledge to let her live there until she died.
As recounted by the Chronicle's Fagan and detailed last week in a lawsuit alleging breach of contract and elder abuse, that promise of lifetime tenancy was honored by both Kroeze's daughter, Beatrice Kroeze Matthews, and granddaughter, Pamela Kantz. But a family tragedy -- Kantz's death at the hands of a boyfriend in 2006 -- led to an attempt to evict her from the California Drive bungalow last month.
One of the attorneys representing Hatch in her lawsuit, Nancy Fineman of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, said Friday she believed the stress of the impending lawsuit, combined with other health issues, took a toll on her client.