Yenema "Burma" Fernandez

Yenema V. “Burma” Fernandez died Friday, April 4th, after a brief illness. She was the daughter of Shelby and Pearl Childress Bermingham of Bauxite, Ark. A 1944 graduate of Bauxite High School, she attended Airline Technical School in Omaha. She is survived by her daughter Kathleen Fernandez Hillibish, of Canton, Ohio, stepdaughter Connie Webb Jenkins and grandson B.J. Jenkins, both of St. Louis. She was preceded in death by her husbands Norbert K. “Pancho” Fernandez and Lloyd Webb. Burma worked in World War II defense rocket plants at Sunflower Ordinance in Kansas and was a teletype operator at TWA Airlines in Omaha and Dayton, and at Gentile Depot in Dayton. In 1952, she and her husband Pancho established Fernandez Art-Craft in Town and Country Shopping Center in Kettering and opened a framing shop in Bellbrook in 1957. From 1960 to 1971 she produced “Arts and Crafts with Burma” on Channel 22 in Dayton. She was a director of Town and Country Business Association and founder of Town and Country Chamber of Commerce. She developed Bellbrook Plaza Shopping Center in downtown Bellbrook in the 1970s and operated a branch of Fernandez Art-Craft there until 1988. She is a former chairperson of the Hobby Industry Association and a founding member of Bellbrook Business Association, now the Bellbrook/Sugarcreek Chamber of Commerce. She was a director of the Chamber of Commerce and the Bellbrook Sugar Maple Festival, and she was a board member of Bellbrook/Sugarcreek Educational Foundation. Burma was a founding member and later chairperson of the Bellbrook Community Bank, now part of Huntington Bank. She was the first woman on the board of Bank First National in Zanesville. She was a board member of Blue Jacket Outdoor Drama and a long-time member of the Gem City Sweet Adelines. She was a board member of the International Military Affairs Organization and a member of International Friendship Force. She was elected to the Greene County Womens' Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Bellbrook/Sugarcreek Schools’ Hall of Fame in 2009. She attended Bellbrook Methodist Church. She will posthumously receive the Nutter Award from the Greene County Community Improvement Corporation and the Greene County Commissioners on April 25, 2014. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that any donations be made to the Fernandez Scholarship Fund of the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Educational Foundation, P. O. Box 5, Bellbrook, OH 45305; or the Bellbrook Methodist Church, E. Franklin St., Bellbrook, OH 45305; or the Community Wellness Coalition, Inc.’s Open Arms Health Clinic, 4403 S. State Route 725, Bellbrook, OH 45305. A public memorial service will be held on May 3, 2014 at 2:00 pm at the Bellbrook Middle School.

Yenema "Burma" Fernandez

July 17, 1925 - April 4, 2014