Frances H. Ortega

Frances Hope Ortega passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at the age of 88, after a brief illness. She was born in Ft. Lupton, CO on March 9, 1935, to Frank and Margaret “Maggie” Gutierrez.  

Frances was ahead of her times in so many ways. After graduating from Denver’s Manual High School, she opened a restaurant, Panchita’s Delicatessen, home of her famous tostadas. She worked at Continental Airlines as team lead for food preparation and cabin crews. At Continental, Frances met many celebrities and elected officials. She also developed her adventurous travel spirit, visiting New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Antonio, Seattle, British Columbia, Hawaii, and the Truk Atoll, now known as the Chuuk Lagoon within the Federated States of Micronesia.  Frances also worked briefly in the cafeteria at the University of Colorado in Boulder’s University Memorial Center. 

Frances was most proud of her job as a clean room custodial specialist at Ball Aerospace where she strictly enforced NASA cleanroom protocols for the Hubble Space Telescope missions. She received special clearance to work in high security areas. NASA awarded Frances a medal in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the Space Shuttle Endeavor Mission STS-61, NASA's first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in December of 1993.  

After she retired from Ball Aerospace, Frances helped care for the loves of her life, her two grandsons Francisco and Antonio. She loved taking walks in the park with the boys and teaching them geography in particular. Frances was an avid follower of the news, politics, financial investing, water law, and NASA space programs. She delighted in talking to friends and family at length about these things.  

Frances is preceded in death by her parents, her brother, Salvador, and her son Ronnie Romolo Ortega, Jr. She is survived by her daughter Victoria, her grandsons Francisco and Antonio, her nieces, Margaret and Martha, her grandnieces, Claire, Mia, and Crystal, and the many who knew her and shared stories with her. We will all remember Frances as the loving, hard-working, interesting, kind, generous, funny, fierce, and intelligent woman she was.  

A rosary and memorial Mass will be held at St Dominic Catholic Parish, 2905 Federal Blvd., Denver beginning at 10:00 am, MT.  Please check the St Dominic Catholic Parish Denver YouTube page for a livestream of the services. We look forward to sharing lunch and stories with everyone shortly after the Mass in the Church basement.  The family with gather for the internment at the Eaton Cemetary, in Eaton Colorado at 11:00am on Tuesday, August 29, 2023. We will gather at Section 21 of the Cemetery which is on the east side of the cemetery.  

In lieu of flowers, contributions in memory of Frances Ortega would be appreciated to either the NASA Starport Scholarship, Johnson Space Center Scholarship program, Starport Donation or https://anc.apm.activecommunities.com/starport/donation/detail/3?onlineSiteId=0&recurring=falseor to St. Dominic Catholic Parish at https://stdominicdenver.org to donate online. Thank you