Joan Kerber Maredyth

1947 - 2019

Beloved mother, sister, aunt and friend, Joan Kerber Maredyth passed peacefully, January 5, 2019. Born in Tucson, Arizona to loving parents, George and Edythe Kerber in 1947, Joan's early life was clouded by poverty and health problems. She escaped poverty as an adult, but her health problems and chronic pain plagued her for the rest of her life. Even so, she never stopped pushing herself and was able to overcome these obstacles. After working a series of minimum wage jobs, she was hired by Marcus Vanderlaan as a legal secretary. He mentored her and helped her "read for the law," and pass the bar exam on the first try without going to law school. Besides her law practice and raising her son, she devoted herself to fighting for the ethical and humane treatment of animals, equal rights for all, advocating for the voiceless and disempowered, and the preservation of wild-life and the planet. She will be remembered with pride as a woman of small stature and huge heart, who loved her family fiercely, giving whatever she had, if they needed it. Joan will always be deeply loved and missed and in our hearts forever. She is survived by her son, Isaac Fischer, Isaac's dad, Burt Fischer, sister and brother-in-law, Emojean and George Girard, two nieces, Joyce Masters and Renee Girard, nephew, Sean Bailey, grand nephew, Alder Bailey-Conklin and her dog Tilly. Joan will be celebrated by family and friends at a private gathering in March. If you wish, donations, in her memory may be made to the Front Street Animal Shelter in Sacramento, Loaves and Fishes, www.sacloaves.org, or Chako Pit Bull Rescue, www.chako.org.