Posted: July 21, 2009 |(0) Comments

Gloria Mary Kuchler died July 1, 2009, of complications of age after suffering a stroke about four years ago.

She was a volunteer and social activist who organized what became an annual community rummage sale in Wauwatosa's East Towne area. Many years ago, Kuchler got the idea of holding a rummage sale with neighbors in the 2500 block of North 66th Street in Wauwatosa. She organized it and collected $1 from each participating neighbor to pay for advertising. That grew block by block over the years into an annual area event that involves dozens of homes.

Keenly interested in political issues, Kuchler wrote many letters that were published in the Milwaukee Journal. She also sent letters to the late Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire about a range of topics, to which he responded with personal replies. She also demonstrated against domestic violence and the Gulf War.

Kuchler managed the hot lunch program at the former St. Thomas Aquinas School on Milwaukee's north side for about 25 years, building it into a successful and financially stable operation. When she learned that many children were going without breakfasts, she expanded the program to include free breakfasts supplementing the menu with day-old bakery and other food she solicited from the community.

After retiring from the school in 1985, she did a wide variety of volunteering, sometimes at the requests of her daughters. She comforted babies as a volunteer at the Penfield Children's Center in Milwaukee, tutored adults in reading and mathematics at the former St. Gall Catholic Church on Milwaukee's north side, volunteered as a cook in Waukesha for a free meal program run by the Cooperating Congregations of Waukesha County and tutored for an English-as-a-second-language program at a church in downtown Waukesha.

An early advocate of recycling and ecological responsibility, she was laid to rest in a simple pine coffin that was lovingly crafted and decorated by her husband, Roland, and her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Family members sanded the wood, screwed it together and used acrylic paints and a wood-burning tool to decorate the underside of the coffin lid. That included her namesake and great-granddaughter, 16-month-old Gloria Pabon of West Allis, who left her handprints on the wood.

Active into her late 70s, Kuchler loved to bake. She made dozens of Christmas cookies each year - often creating 20 or more varieties - which she and her children then gave away packed in shirt boxes to family, friends, neighbors and parishioners.

She is survived by her husband, Roland of Wauwatosa; daughter, Susan Couchman; son, Tim of Wauwatosa; daughter, Judy Boland of the town of Brookfield; other relatives and friends.

Funeral Mass was July 10 at St. Bernard Catholic Church, Wauwatosa. She was laid to rest July 11 at St. Mary's Cemetery, Elm Grove.

Memorials are suggested to the Hope Unit at the Wisconsin Lutheran Care Center.