A veteran American Soroptimist with a long standing link with Burnley has died aged 98.

Norma Yocum and her husband Sam owned a furniture business in San Gabriel on the border of Alhambra in California.  Her Soroptimist club of Alhambra-San Gabriel-San Marino forged formal Friendship links in the 1940s with Soroptimists in Burnley.  

Mrs. Yocum who died two days before her 99^th birthday had visited Burnley on a number of occasions and was a generous hostess when Burnley Soroptimists visited the USA.  On one occasion, she hired a chauffeur driven limousine to take a fellow club member, crime-writer Gay Kinman, and Burnley club member, Miss Nora Simpson, on a wine tasting tour of the Paso Robles area.  Mrs Kinman recalled that they had “visited about five wineries and had a fabulous time!”

Mrs. Yocum made national headlines in the USA during WWII when she looked after the children of soon to be interned Japanese friends - to the indignation of neighbours who scorned her.  At the end of the war, her club provided a much needed touch of luxury in austerity gripped Britain by sending a parcel containing a pair of much sought after nylon stockings for each Burnley Soroptimist.

She was a prolific letter writer to friends around the world, including those in Burnley and wrote a book about her “Life and Times”.  Copies of it are in both the Alhambra Library and the Alhambra Historical Society Library which she helped to found

Burnley President, Pauline Frost Hardwick, sent condolences to the family via the Alhambra Soroptimists.  She said ” I understand Mrs Yocum was a woman of great moral character who always did the right thing regardless of the personal cost to her reputation.  She was well respected in both her personal and professional life and did a great deal for Soroptimism particularly, as we know, through her international goodwill and understanding.” 

As well as the ties to Alhambra, the Burnley club now also has Formal Friendship Links with Soroptimists in Berlin and Copenhagen, with Burnie in Tasmania as well as Bath and Oxford in the U.K.