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A three-hour gathering and memorial celebration for friends and relatives of active and engaged Portola Valley resident Rosemarie Luce is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27, at a private home in town. (Call 650-888-8829 for information on the celebration.)
Ms. Luce died July 12 at her home at the age of 81.
The daughter of Italian immigrants Salvatore and Rose Magnasco, she was a native of San Jose and grew up on a family farm with an orchard, where she helped pick fruit.
She graduated from Campbell High School and attended San Jose State University, where she majored in occupational therapy. She left college to marry Ted Luce.
Once in the Bay Area, the couple lived in San Francisco and Palo Alto before moving to Portola Valley, where they lived for 50 years and raised three children.
She found work as an administrative assistant, and performed on local stages as a singer and actor and on the piano, which she also taught. She volunteered with the Peninsula Children’s Theater Association and the Peninsula Children’s Center.
At various points, she was a member of the town’s Parks & Recreation Committee and a president of the PTA, and was a regular at town picnics with “pots of chili, stacks of ribs and mounds of potato salad,” her family said.
At home, she pickled, canned and baked, sewed, painted and drew, and as she got older, played bridge, worked puzzles and watched old classic movies. Outdoors, she played paddle tennis, tennis, golf and softball.
Ms. Luce is survived by her husband Ted; brother Robert Magnasco; sons Kevin Luce of Missoula, Montana, and Timothy Luce of Van Nuys, California; and daughter Cynthia Luce of Portola Valley.
Ms. Luce donated her remains to the medical school at the University of California at San Francisco.
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