Diane Porter Cooley, In Memoriam

— Diane Porter Cooley, In Memoriam —

October 15, 1928 - March 11, 2022

Diane Porter Cooley at her home, 2018. Photo by Jeremy Lezin.

Diane Porter Cooley, once said to me:

“Susan, community is about living life together. It’s about getting through hard times, floods, and fire; camping with girl scouts; serving meals and building clinics; helping kids and planting trees.”

This was just after I began as CEO of the Foundation in 2017, and Diane was deeply generous in her time with me. She wanted to be sure that I had a good understanding of the institution she’d help found that I was now going to lead.

I join many Santa Cruz County residents in comforting each other as we honor the wild wit, ferocious passion, deep knowledge, and endless instruction that we learned from and enjoyed in Diane Porter Cooley.

Without Diane, our county may never have had a Land Trust, the Elkhorn Slough Foundation, Salud Para la Gente, Pajaro Valley Shelter Services, the Community Foundation, and so many other organizations and initiatives that work to preserve the land we cherish and strengthen who we are as a community.

Diane loved the fairgrounds. Here she is zipping around with me and John Kegebein, the leader of the Agricultural History Project and former head of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds. She said, “I think people, as they grow older, should not look for so much security. I think they should still look for adventure.”

For those of you who shared time with Diane, you know that every hour with her was an adventure. Unexpected stories, spontaneous road trips, a quick stop to meet someone, and of course, a few life lessons. Diane always had something to share. And, that quick laugh. What joy she sparked.

As her friend Bill Simpkins said to me, “Diane was more than an icon.” She was a giant, just like the Sequoias she loved.

“I care for the trees but for humans, too. People should have the chance to thrive just like the Sequoia should stand tall.”

In an oral history interview with the Community Foundation in 2009, Diane said,

“ You have to be able to live with people in every spectrum, and respect and enjoy and be responsible to and dependent upon many. I think that one of the values of being in a smaller community and maybe even a smaller county, is that we’re more in touch with people and what is really going on. I hope the Community Foundation doesn’t ever lose track of that.”

We won’t lose track, Diane. Your words guide us every day.

We’ve lost so many legends in recent years and now Diane. We stand on their shoulders.

Diane with her beloved husband of seven decades, Don Cooley at their home, 2018. Photo by Jeremy Lezin. Anne Youngblood, Diane’s daughter said (in her interview with the Pajaronian) that above all, Diane’s relationship with her friends and family brought her the most joy. “She had one of the most vast networks of family and friends I have ever witnessed,” she said.

Warmly,

Susan True, CEO

Credit: Devi Pride Photography