Tucked into each floral arrangement at Tuesday morning’s funeral service were perennials with tiny, brightly hued flowers clinging closely to the stem, forming and tapering like Christmas lights. The plant, named for a saint who literally gave the shirt off her back to wipe the sweat from Jesus’ brow, was a small tribute to the giving person whose visage it encircled. Common names include Speedwell and Bird’s Eye, but florists know it as something else: Veronica.
Veronica Moffitt died after being hit by a car while riding her scooter in east Hermosa Thursday night. She was 27. Her death shocked friends and family, and moved the many people whose lives she touched in her years in the South Bay.
Her sister Emma said that she and her father Bryan were going through Moffitt’s room on Monday, and found a large collection of what seemed to be knick knacks. They quickly realized that the objects were gifts, waiting to be given.
“She was one of the most genuine and kind people you could ever meet,” Emma said after the service at St. Lawrence Church in Redondo Beach. “Anytime she saw something that reminded her or made her think of someone, she’d buy it.”
Moffitt, a Redondo Beach resident, worked at Creme de la Crepe and at the Rolling Hills Flower Mart in Manhattan Beach. Chelsea Gaudenti, owner of the flower mart, helped provide the arrangements at the funeral service. She described Moffitt as a passionate, dedicated employee with a “work ethic that I’d never seen before.”
“It always blew me away, she was just so excited and so happy any time we got new flowers in. She would advocate for them, share them with all her customers,” Gaudenti said.
Kasia Bialecki, a co-worker of Moffitt’s at the Pier Avenue Creme de la Crepe, would often chat with Moffitt when relieving her at the restaurant. She said regular customers came in and out of the restaurant Monday, exchanging hugs and crying over Moffitt’s passing.
“Everyone remembers her as the most wonderful girl. She was never in a mood,” Bialecki said.
Both of them owned scooters, Bialecki said, and Moffitt, whose Vespa had two seats, occasionally teased her about her one-seater, calling it a “toy.”
Moffitt was heading northbound on Prospect Avenue Thursday when, about 6:30 p.m., she collided with an Audi sedan at the intersection with Aviation Boulevard, said Sgt. Robert Higgins of the Hermosa Beach Police Department. The driver of the Audi, a Hermosa Beach man, was not hurt, but Moffitt succumbed to injuries sustained in the accident.
An impromptu memorial formed at the intersection Monday afternoon. Flowers and candles were joined by a scooter, left by a woman who wanted to raise awareness about dangerous driving, with a hand-written sign that read “Please Slow Down.”
Traffic on Prospect has been attracting increasing attention recently. Several residents spoke about speeding vehicles on the street at last week’s Hermosa City Council meeting. And the thoroughfare was the focus of last weekend’s “Safe Streets” initiative from the Beach Cities Health district.
Higgins said that the rapid flow of traffic in the area means that accidents there typically involve injuries.
“It’s not a ‘problem intersection,’ but when we do have collisions there, they’re usually pretty substantial,” he said. “The streets have relatively high speed limits for a residential area, so when crashes do happen they’re pretty serious.”
The case is under investigation and no assessment of fault has yet been made; police may soon pull the “black box” or data recorder from the car, Higgins said. The Audi was not totalled in the accident, but could not be driven away from the scene and had to be taken away on a tow truck. After the person at fault spoke with their insurance they immediately contacted an auto accident attorney to see what the next steps are in this unfortunate turn of events.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Moffitt is survived by her mother Mary Lou, her father Bryan, her sister Emma, and four brothers. The family periodically came out to California from the East Coast, most recently in June for Emma’s graduation from UC Santa Barbara.
Looking at photos from that trip, Bryan paused on one of Veronica and her mother skipping along the beach, and smiled at the way it captured his daughter.
“This is a typical example of Veronica: she knew how to pose, but she also knew how to have a good time.”
