Lou M. Lunardi

Lou M. Lunardi
2/18/1923 - 12/7/2010


Lou Lunardi, beloved wife of Paul J. Lunardi, former mayor of Roseville, Calif., passed away of natural causes on December 7, 2010. She was 87 years old. Her husband also represented this area as a State Assemblyman and State Senator from 1959 to 1966.
Lou and Paul joined families in 1973, having met years earlier when she handled his successful State Senate campaign in Nevada County.
Mrs. Lunardi was born Lou M. Jones on February 18, 1923 in Columbia, Tennessee. She grew up on a small family farm during the Great Depression. She was an accomplished equestrian with a life-long love of horses.
Her passing on December 7, 2010 was peaceful in contrast to her vivid memories of December 7, 1941-Pearl Harbor Day, an event which changed her life. She was a fierce Democrat and great admirer of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She left her small southern hometown in 1942 to work in the Ford Motors defense plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, building B-24 Liberators for the European and South Pacific war theatres. After the war, she settled in California.
Lou raised her first family in Grass Valley, Calif. As Lou (Mrs. Richard) Kennedy, she was an icon in community affairs, serving for eight years on the Grass Valley School Board-the first woman ever elected to that office. She served as County Personnel Commissioner, Girl Scout leader, and chaperone for school events. She enjoyed the sisterhood of the local Phi Epsilon Phi Sorority. As a member of the Nevada County Democratic Central Committee, she managed successful state legislative campaigns for both Lunardi and the late Stephen Teale.
Lou and Paul married in 1973 and she moved to Roseville to become the matriarch of an extended and loving family including daughters Nancy Lunardi-Seibert, Carol Kennedy, Janet Kennedy Bedrosian, Sally (Spillers) Podesta Bean; and son Richard L. "Skip" Kennedy; sons-in-law Tod Bedrosian, Bob Bean and Dan Podesta; daughter-in-law Roxanne Moger; grandchildren Stephen and Kevin Cline, Katherine and Sean Bedrosian, Holli Jones, Christopher and Nickolaus Lunardi-Seibert, Meghan Kennedy, and Dan (Tony), Paul, and Joseph Podesta; and 15 great- grandchildren. She is also survived by her brother Gene Jones of Wasilla, Alaska.
Services will be private. The family requests that remembrances be given to the World Wildlife Fund.