Remembering Janice Tucker (1946-2021)

Janice Tucker, a founding board member and longtime volunteer who supported nearly every aspect of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden’s growth and operations over the years, died unexpectedly on Aug. 20 after a lengthy illness. She is survived by her husband of 54 years, C.R. “Sonny” Tucker.

Janice’s immeasurable contributions to the Garden spanned more than two decades, beginning in the 1990s with the development of the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve — a place where she served as a docent for many years and a place friends say was “her first love.” The 35-acre site, with its spring-fed pond and extraordinary diversity of plants and wildlife, has been operated and maintained by the Garden since 1993 under a lease agreement with El Rancho de las Golondrinas. The Santa Fe Botanical Garden was incorporated in April 1987, and the Museum Hill site opened more than 25 years later, in July 2013.

Many of those who knew Janice credit her knowledge of plants, her skill in photographing and cataloging them, her communication skills and desire to share knowledge, and her exceptional organizational and computer skills with helping to grow the Garden into the rich community resource it is today. “We remain ever grateful,” says Barb Goede, one of the self-proclaimed “dreamers” whose vision and efforts led to the development of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden at Museum Hill. In recent years, Janice, Barb and Sue Wise worked together to catalog and organize the Garden’s history. They called themselves the “History Keepers.”

Janice was one of the Garden’s first board members, serving from 2002 to 2005. She helped establish the Garden’s first Education Committee and was pivotal in the September 2012 launch of “Science at the Cienega,” a middle school educational program conducted at the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve.

Beginning in 2007, she began producing informative text for the Garden’s Plant of the Month articles, which also featured her photography. Janice was the sole contributor until late 2011 when the Garden recruited other volunteers so she could focus on education. Her most recent article, on Santa Fe phlox, was published on the Garden’s website in April. In prior years, she authored “Wetland Wonders,” a weekly online newsletter for Garden volunteers.

Former Garden staffer Fran Cole remembers Janice as “an amazing friend. Janice was an integral part of the Garden, remaining active, ready for duty and enthusiastic until her unexpected death. Her time and commitment, generosity, loyalty, financial and moral support, creativity, enthusiasm, and unwavering attention to detail will be profoundly missed. She was a teacher, friend, leader, scientist, photographer, comedian, cook and historian. If she were alive to read this tribute, she would probably feign modesty and take it all in stride. She was our hero.”

Janice and fellow volunteer Helen Woody spent countless hours together at the Preserve to develop a herbarium for the Garden — a collection of pressed plants and plant data that can be used to further the knowledge of scientists, researchers, teachers and plant lovers. “Janice often said this was her favorite activity with the Garden,” says Helen. “We were out in the Preserve by ourselves looking for plants and enjoying all the wetland has to offer.” Between April and October, the two women would walk the trails in and around the Preserve while looking for “new” plants. Janice would photograph the plant and Helen would clip samples to be dried, pressed and mounted. Janice then photographed the mounted plants, and these images and others she took were incorporated into the Garden’s first plant database, which has since evolved into the Garden Explorer. The mounted plants will be added to the Garden’s educational collections.

“Her love of plants is evident in the tireless hours she devoted to the wetland and the plants that were at home there. It was a major event when she and Helen discovered something new, about as major an event as discovery of a new planet,” says Susan Bruneni, who currently serves as the Garden host at the Preserve. Susan speaks fondly of Janice’s response when Susan told her that her then 5-year-old granddaughter reported a “rare” sighting of two fairies in a Russian olive at the Preserve. “Wow!” Janice wrote in an email response to Susan: “Tell [your granddaughter] that her fairy sighting is very, very unique and special. Maybe if I’m lucky one day I will see them, too. I do believe, though, that they must have waved their magic wands because this morning the Preserve was so beautiful and the weather so nice that it felt like something magical had happened. So even though I did not see the fairies, I think I got to enjoy their magic.”

“She loved children, and they knew it,” said Jeanne Gozigian, who co-chaired the popular Children’s Holiday Craft Workshop with Tucker for many years. “When on docent duty at the Preserve, she was always delighted to lead large or small groups of people on exciting tours. She was a master at extending her excitement to visitors,” Gozigian recalls.

Cristina Salvador, the Garden’s associate director of operations, recalls meeting Janice when she was co-leader of the docent training program when Cristina started volunteering at the Preserve. “She welcomed me right in with her big smile and excitement to share what she was learning. She was pure delight to be around and fascinated by the natural world at all times. She told me several times that she wished she would have been a botanist after discovering how much she enjoyed learning about the wonders of plants. She captured so many astonishing details with her stunning photography. Many of the marvelous photos we display today are from the years of her passion looking closely at nature. She had such a delightful curiosity and always said she could have written many more pages for her Plant of the Month articles. She was so eloquent, witty, and a wonderful storyteller who found a positive view of everything despite facing any challenge. She cherished all living things and loved her husband, home, and their pets, even writing funny cards with poems sent from their dog. She was the epitome of Southern charm, polite and practical, endlessly thoughtful and kind. She was so engaged and cared so deeply for the Garden, and we all are so lucky to have had her as a true friend in our lives.”

“Janice played a pivotal role in the development of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden we know today,” recalls Sue Fenimore, another longtime Garden member. “Janice brought structure and creativity as well as attention to detail to her contributions, particularly to the Garden Tours, which were organized by Garden volunteers and showcased representative home gardens featuring seasonal plants. Through the popularity of the tours, SFBG became a well-known organization in the community, resulting in many new volunteers to the organization, many of whom continue to be involved with the Garden today.”

The Garden Tours constituted some of the Garden’s earliest revenue-producing activities, explains former board member and president Rosemary Minard. “Janice really helped out with just about everything, donating all kinds of in-kind computer services as well as her time. I believe that there would be no SFBG today if it were not for Janice’s indefatigable efforts. And she loved doing it! What a loss to us all — a wonderful person, devoted friend of the Garden.”

Memorial Service Planned

A celebration of Janice’s life will be held at the Leonora Curtin Wetland Preserve from 3:30-5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25, which would have been her 75th birthday. Light refreshments will be served. To assist with arrangements, we ask that you R.S.V.P. no later than noon on Sept. 15.

R.S.V.P. here

If you wish to speak at the memorial service, please contact: Cristina Salvador via email at [email protected].

Donations in Janice’s Memory

If you wish to make a donation to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden in Janice’s memory, you can do so online via our secured website or by sending a check to:

Santa Fe Botanical Garden
Attention: Cristina Salvador
P.O. Box 23343
Santa Fe, NM  87502-3343

Please note that you are making the donation in honor of Janice and her unwavering passion for the Garden.