Lucretia Marie Gardner (Lucky) passed away unexpectedly early Sunday, February 1, 2009.
Lucky was born in New York City on May 26, 1944. She and her family moved to Oklahoma before eventually settling in Palo Alto in 1956.
Lucky graduated from Woodside High School in 1962. She worked for Fairchild in the HR Department in the late 60’s. She married in 1971 and moved to Gilroy in 1976.
Lucky has seven children and eight grandchildren that were her life and joy. She also enjoyed crafts and working with people.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was the proprietor of “Little Bits”, a crafts boutique in Gilroy until she decided to return to college. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from San Jose State in 1995.
She continued on with her schooling completing her Master of Arts degree in 1997. Since then, she has been actively teaching English and writing skills to hundreds of students at Gavilan, Merced, and Evergreen Jr. Colleges. Recently, she braved teaching at the Jr. High level with a Life Skills class at Solar Sano.
Lucky loved to serve as well. She wrote the weekly church bulletin of the Gavilan Hills Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She served on many Garlic Festival committees including the GHS athletic booster club and GHS choir. She so loved the Garlic Festival, that she often sponsored parties for friends centered around the festival. She was also active in a women’s group that made quilts for the IOOF home and for the needy in Latin America. In recent years, Lucky traveled extensively in Eurpoe.
Gilroy has lost a great woman and Lucky will surely be missed. She is survived be her three siblings, Mary Luscutoff, Ruth Ann Gardner and Raymond Gardner; her six children, Denise Gluhan, Michael Zimmershead, Matthew Zimmershead, Melody Gebhardt, Maxwell Zimmershead, Megan Zimmershead and seven grandchildren.
