Joanne

Nichols

My beautiful and very favorite Aunt Joanne Louise Nichols passed away early Sunday morning, peacefully during her sleep on August 27. She was 91. I remember her like the photo with me shown above.  At one time she had been a model and ballerina. She drove a yellow convertible, wore beautiful designer clothes and even interacted with the Rat Pack while living Las Vegas. She was a skilled dancer and was a member of the prestigious Dottie Dunn dance troupe. (Similar to being a Rockette at Christmas).

She was fiercely Independent and extremely honest during a time when being a woman who acted outside of "the Norm" or colored outside of the lines could potentially be perceived as a challenge to both men and women of that era.

She was tall for her generation, tan and usually by a pool in her spare time. She also loved cooking, growing orchids and riding her horse for hours on end. She even raised a couple of calves.

For a time she had two twin Yorkshire terriers that always had colored bows holding up their furry front bangs. She had waist long raven hair that she kept up in a French twist, a mink stole for evenings out and wore the most exotic perfume I have ever encountered.

Later in her life she became a realtor and eventually retired in Watsonville. She found all work honorable. Even after retiring if she wanted to work, she was just as happy to be hired part time in a grocery store,  as she was a boutique. She was even a 911 police dispatcher at one time.  She loved life and wanted to live forever. I think I believed she would, too. I asked her once what advice she had. Her answer, "Enjoy your life no matter what, save your money and just keep moving". It certainly worked for her.

It's particularly hard to lose someone that is always in your corner, and she certainly was for me. I want to believe too, that her former friends and family have now welcomed her home to her new next chapter. I can see her now looking like her younger self once again with her long black hair flowing behind her, with her Yorkies riding shotgun in her new yellow convertible.

I can see her wearing her mink coat, smell her perfume, and see a dazzling glint from new jewelry from one of her admirers. I also see her changing from her ballet slippers into cowboy boots to ride off on her horse that had so loyally been waiting to run across open fields with her again.

She knew I loved fairytales and when I was growing up would buy volumes of them for me. Little did we know I would end up with a house in a Fairytale Village in Italy. I am going to take a trip their again soon and will be taking her ashes to be loving placed there in her honor and memory.

She is survived by her niece, Jan Schiffner formerly of Hollister and now a Washington resident, her great-nephew Joshua Kampa, his wife Dominique and her great-great-niece Linnea Kampa of Hollister.