Mercedes Basadre

Mercedes Josefa Basadre, 74, passed away peacefully at home, December 4th, 2023.

Mercedes was born April 12th, 1949, in Newark, New Jersey to Jose and Amelia Basadre, and raised with her younger sister, Amy, in Metuchen, New Jersey. Mercedes attended Mount Angel College, Mount Angel, Oregon, where she received her bachelor's degree in counseling. Mercedes later received her Master of Science in Education Degree from the Oregon College of Education at Oregon State University. Mercedes had a long and diverse career in teaching and training which began by teaching English to migrant worker's children during her college years and then moving on to teaching core curriculum and coaching middle school sports in the Salem, OR school district. Mercedes began her corporate career as Director of Training for Nurses, at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. She then relocated to Tennessee for Levi Strauss Co., traveling extensively in an HR and training capacity. Afterwards, she continued in the training field for Wyeth/ Pfizer Inc, Schering-Plough Corp., Merck Co. and retired from Amazon Corp. in 2012.

Mercedes lived with her best friend and companion, Reva White, on Sugarloaf Mountain, in Ocoee, Tennessee for 12 years, where she spent countless hours outdoors; working in the yard, chatting with neighbors while walking Chewy down to the lake, and riding or hiking in the Cherokee National Forest. Mercedes loved women's basketball and was a proud box-seat holder for the Lady Vols Basketball team for many years while residing in Knoxville, TN. Her diverse interests included collecting memorabilia for the Lady Vols, VW Beetles vans, Levi's advertising, Franklin vintage automobile collectables and much more. Mercedes was an avid reader of mystery novels and she read the Sunday New York Times from front to back every week. One of her simple pleasures was letting Chewy hang his head out of the window while she drove Cookson Creek Road, where she stopped many times to help neighbors get stray cows out of the road and back into their pastures. Mercedes was always thrilled when she spotted black bears in the yard or down the road. She also loved her dogs, Chewy and Homer and she was quite the Cat Lady... shoutouts to Betty, Lucy, Shadow and Kitty-Kitty and many, many more.

Mercedes loved flying back to NJ several times a year to visit friends, family and old classmates from Metuchen High School. Mercedes was also proud of her Cuban and Spanish heritage, and she was able to visit Cuba several times as a child and then once more in 2010 to see her relatives. Mercedes was preceded in death by her father, Jose Basadre, of Metuchen, her paternal grandparents, Angel and Mercedes (Alvarez) Basadre and her maternal grandparents, Jose and Josefa (Melero) Mastrapa. Mercedes is survived by her mother, Amelia Basadre, her sister, Amelia (Amy) Basadre-Bennett, and many cousins, including Luis Mastrapa Morales, Ovidio and Gisela Rodriguez and Arthur Diego. She is also survived by extended family from coast to coast in the U.S. and Cuba and her best friends in Tennessee, Reva White, Shari Kepsel, Sue McQueeney and Anita Woodby.

Mercedes' Celebration of Life will be held Sunday, March 10th, 2024 at The Steelwheel Corner Diner, 411 Hwy, Benton, TN, from 2-4 p.m. In lieu of flowers please send contributions for Alzheimer's research to the Alzheimers Foundation of America, 322 8th Ave, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10001.