A Biographical Eulogy for my Mother, from my sister, Rebecca Gryka

My mom was a strong woman with a love of learning and a desire to serve others. At a time when most women did not attend college, she not only attended college, she attended an Ivy League university on full scholarship. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology. Not only did she graduate, she excelled, and earned a membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

At a time when most women did not work outside the home once they were married, for the first year of her married life, she utilized her sociology degree by working at the Nickerson House, a settlement house, in Providence, Rhode Island, where my dad was stationed in the Navy. She began her to fulfill her desire to serve others during this time by working with teenagers in a low income area.

As her children got older, she returned to work. Her work history was diverse, but most of her choices had serving others at the core. She started as a City Hostess, welcoming newcomers to the Fair Oaks area. She was so good at convincing merchants to offer goodies to newcomers that she transitioned to selling accounts. Memories of that time, for me at least, involve putting together the “Welcome Packages” with all the myriad coupons to the various merchants which Mom would then distribute to the newcomers.  

Years later she transitioned to a position that she really loved, which involved teaching low income and other target groups, such as senior citizens and others, how to maintain good nutrition within the constraints of a budget and special diets. That job was the motivating force for going back to school and earning her BS in Home Economics (CSUS). During that time she also taught evening Nutrition classes at American River College. She really cared about trying to make a difference in people’s lives.

After the funding for the grant ended, she began working as a media tech in an elementary school library. This started her down a path of working in libraries as a reading motivationalist. She honed her story telling skills to try to entice kids to read — apparently a skill first experienced in her mother’s lap as a child. Again, the overriding theme was serving others.

During our teen and college years, she worked with the Girl Scouts, started a women’s club, and participated in various other community service activities. The quality and quantity of her work earned her Woman of the Year from El Dorado Hills in 1973. As a side note: I was away at college when she was bestowed this honor, and I never knew she had been awarded this honor. She did not extol her own accomplishments.

Her activities during retirement continued to attest to her love of and support of learning: she was active both in PEO, an organization that supports higher education, and in an organization that supports the El Dorado Hills Library.

Through all of her civic participation, Mom did not neglect her first priorities: her husband and her children. My father's numerous successes in his career were helped along by Mom's unwavering support at home. Her four children's lasting marriages can be attributed to the modelling of consistency each had at home.

  

As I mentioned earlier, Mom’s greatest joy was giving to others, whether it be the comfort of feeling welcome given to newcomers, the gift of reading given to youngsters, a plan of good health given to senior citizens, or the knowledge that success in life comes through hard work and consistency, given to her children. Jane Bird Trafzer was a wife, a mother, a neighbor, a friend, a teacher, a woman of educational and professional achievement, and a child of God. She made a difference. She will be missed.