Maheu family matriarch dies

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2003 | 9:28 a.m.

Yvette Maheu's grandchildren were experts at cribbage and Monopoly by the time they were 10, able to beat their dad, her youngest son, William, at the card table.

Their Nanny taught them during their trips to visit several times a year from San Diego, when her house would fill with generations of the Maheu extended family.

As soon as William's family arrived, "the cards would come out," said her youngest son, now an assistant chief for the San Diego Police Department. "That's what my children remember."

Yvette Maheu, wife of Howard Hughes' longtime assistant, Robert Maheu, taught her family many lessons, cards being only one of them, William Maheu said.

She taught them to rely on faith and to remain hopeful, even through tough times.

"I can't tell you how many times through my life when my mom said, 'Billy take it a day at a time,' " William Maheu said. Now he finds himself passing on that advice to his children, friends and even victims he deals with on his job.

Yvette Maheu, a Las Vegas resident of 37 years, died Friday in Newport Beach, Calif. She was 85.

Mass will be celebrated 11:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Viator Catholic Church, 2461 E. Flamingo Road. Burial will be in Waterville, Maine.

"Her role as a mother defined her," her son Peter said. "She protected her children, she defended us, she took care of us, she taught us some of the good things about life as well as the bad."

Peter Maheu of Las Vegas remembered when he once received a bad check for $10,000 from a client and mentioned it to his mom.

"Mom said, 'It's a blessing in disguise,' " Maheu said.

"At Christmas she bought me a horseshoe on a pedestal with a plaque that says on it, 'Everything's a blessing in disguise,' " he said.

"I never got my $10,000, by the way." But he still has the horseshoe.

Also defining Maheu was her 63-year marriage to Robert Maheu, the man who conducted Howard Hughes' business in Las Vegas through the 1960s and '70s.

The Maheus met in grammar school in Waterville, Maine. She was 10, he was 11.

Twelve years later Robert Maheu was was an FBI agent in Seattle and Yvette Maheu was on a train from Maine to marry him.

"For a young woman to get on a train to travel and marry the love of your life and stay married 62 years is really remarkable," Peter Maheu said.

They renewed their wedding vows at their 25th, 50th and 60th anniversaries. Robert Maheu would tell friends, "I simply fell in love with a girl who likes weddings."

Peter Maheu said his mother and father were at the birth of every grandchild and great-grandchild until the last one, earlier this month. Yvette Maheu was ill, he said, and she died a couple of weeks later.

"You see life come into the world and see it go away," Peter said. "I saw Nolan coming into the world and saw my mother going away. It really brings home the power of God."

She loved to sing, she loved to dance, and she and her husband loved to cook together, William Maheu said. As a result, all of their three sons learned to cook, he said.

"I remember my friends always wanting to come over because the food was so good," he said.

In addition to her husband and her sons Peter and William, Maheu is survived by son Robert G. Maheu of Newport Beach, Calif., 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her daughter, Christine Jaggers.

The family suggests a contribution to the donor's favorite charity.