Wilhelmina Andrade

Former Antioch City Councilwoman Wilhelmina Andrade has long been known for rallying people to community causes. She will draw people together one last time today when she is laid to rest at age 93. Andrade passed away Tuesday. A service will be held this morning at 10 a.m. at the Higgins Chapel in Antioch.
“Before she was even elected to the council, I remember hearing how she had a slough of people marching in the streets for various causes,” said current Antioch councilwoman Mary Rocha. “She was able to mobilize people into fighting for their causes and what they believed was right.”
Andrade sat on Antioch City Council from 1979 to 1982 but remained active in the community well into the 2000s according to her granddaughter, Rennette Costa. Even when her time was finished on the council she still addressed the council on a regular basis. “She worked to expose untruths about the city council and to make sure they kept their word,” Costa said.
Costa said that she recalled many times when people referred to Andrade as the “People’s voice of reason.” For several years she appeared on a local cable television show called “Focus on the truth”.
“I remember the first time I saw that show on television. I didn’t even know she was doing it until I moved to the area and was flipping channels and said ‘Hey that’s my grandmother on T.V.’”
Andrade was not afraid to speak out on tough issues, her granddaughter reported. “She was a very spirited woman,” Costa said.
Rocha described Andrade as very fiscally conservative. At one time she was reported to have asked the council how it could approve more homes when current residents are paying Mello-Roos, lighting and other taxes. “It doesn't make sense,” she had said. “We don't need any more homes. We need jobs.” She also spoke out against the city using tax dollars to build a skate park urging the youth that if they wanted a park then they should find a way to build it themselves.
Andrade was born in Milpitas in 1915. She moved to Byron in 1946 and later moved to Antioch in the 1950s. “My grandmother was really into her Portuguese heritage and was a member of the Sociedade Portuguesa Rainha Santa Isabel,” Costa said.
Aside from her time on the city council and working for various causes over the years, Andrade also served as past president and board member of the Antioch Lapidary Club and was a member of the local Dairy Club. Arcade graduated from nursing school in 1961. She also worked at a cannery for many years.
She and her husband Louis lived on a farm around the Brentwood area before moving into central Antioch. She added items for the time capsule that the County Board of Supervisors organized to commemorate the bicentennial of the US Constitution.
Andrade was a colon cancer survivor, and out lived her husband, Louis, who died October of 1982 and her daughter Gladys Andrade who died November 2005. Her son Stanley lives in Portland, Texas. She also has two sisters who live in the Stockton area as well as three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Friends and family are invited to a funeral service this morning at 10 a.m. at Higgins Chapel in Antioch. In lieu of flowers, Costa asks to please make donations to the American Cancer Society.