Friday, February 27, 2009

Marion Card (-2002)





Marion Card, 1986 Citizen of the Year

Marion Card, Saratoga's Citizen of the Year in 1986, died Oct. 22. She was 86. She and her husband of 60 years, Col. Ernest M. "Bud" Card, resided in Saratoga from 1946 until 1997, when they moved to Paradise Valley Estates, a retirement resort community in Fairfield.

The Cards were instrumental in starting the Sister City relationship between Saratoga and Muko-shi, Japan. This program involves adult and student visits, as well as artistic exchanges between the cities. She was a docent instructor at Hakone Gardens, and served as a director and auxiliary president at Villa Montalvo. She produced video documentaries on both Hakone and Montalvo.

Card taught for 10 years at De Anza College in Cupertino and was a trustee emeritus of the California History Center on that campus. She was a past president of the Saratoga Parent Teachers Association, the Foothill Club, Friends of the Library and the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. She was the first woman elder of the Saratoga Federated Church and was also honored for 20 years of leadership by the Girl Scout Neighborhood Council.

Born in Chicago, Card attended the University of Puget Sound and earned her degree in art history from the University of Washington. During college, she worked at Mount Rainier National Park, and after graduation she was a training director at Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago. Later she was Saratoga's correspondent for the Los Gatos Times-Observer before devoting her life to family, community service and foreign travels.

She is survived by her husband, their four daughters and their families: Carol Moore of Santa Ana, Ashley and H.B. Williams of Punta Gorda, Fla., Janice Card and John Parker of Davis, and Melinda and Stan Dittman of Napa and grandsons Derek and Tyler Dittman.

A memorial service will be conducted Nov. 2 at Paradise Valley Estates. As the resident historian there, she had photographed the community activities and celebrations and documented them in scrapbooks which are displayed in the visitors' lobby of the community center.

Friends are invited to inurnment ceremonies at 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, at Madronia Cemetery. The Rev. Arvin Eggleston of the Saratoga Federated Church will officiate. Donations can be made to Hakone Gardens.


Saratoga News October 30, 2002

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