Lucy Carmen Zazueta Villanueva

It is with great sadness to announce that Lucy C. Zazueta-Villanueva passed away on June 16, 2025, after a seven-month-long battle with renal cancer and adjoining cardio-respiratory complications. Born as Luz Carmen Zazueta-Sanchez on October 26, 1961, to Rafael Mañuelo Zazueta and Olga Sanchez-Young in Baja California, Lucy is the second of ten siblings. She grew up and lived in Southern California alongside her two siblings — the late Rebecca “Becky” Zazueta and Charles “Charlie” Young.

Lucy graduated from Ontario High School and earned her associate’s degree in liberal arts from Citrus College. Following this, she transferred to California Polytechnic University, Pomona to pursue her bachelor’s degree in accounting and eventually pivoted to join the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) at Norco as an administrative assistant in January 1986, where she built a successful thirty-year career. In 2016, Lucy retired as a staff services manager, where she headed CRC’s personnel department for thirteen years prior to her retirement.

A voracious reader since youth, she carried her passion for literature and the arts into her final years of life. Throughout her late teens and early twenties, Lucy often frequented plays, lectures, poetry readings, museums, live music events, and other community and cultural gatherings. In her late twenties, she met her soon-to-be husband, Paul Villanueva Jr., and spent thirty-seven years of marriage bonding over their shared love of live music. Together, they saw several musical legends in concert, including Tony Bennett, Pat Benatar, The Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Cher, The Temptations, and many others.

During her twenties, Lucy’s appreciation for the creative arts led her to try her hand as a self-taught sketch artist. An adept learner, she quickly experimented with and adopted several styles and drawing techniques. Her love for the creative arts and fondness for the ocean found an unofficial second home in Laguna Beach, CA, where she enjoyed perusing and patronizing the city’s many notable artist galleries and studios; adding several paintings to her home in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Lucy also maintained a thirst for travel and reflected fondly on her trips to San Francisco, Hawaii, Monterrey Bay, Cancun, New York City, Connecticut, and Boston.

In her retirement years, Lucy discovered her passion for gardening and raised a variety of fruits, vegetables, and peppers with her husband in the backyard of their home they built and shared for 30 years. As a result of her ongoing zest for life, she dedicated her latter years to volunteering at her local public library. Lucy is survived by her mother, Olga; husband, Paul; son, Jacob; and two dogs, Bobo and Lizzie. She is predeceased by her older sister, Becky, and leaves behind nine siblings — Charlie, Norma, Jeannette, Rafael Jr., Chalio, Beto, Irene, Danny, and David — along with several cousins, nieces and nephews, and other cherished family and friends.

In lieu of flowers, we kindly ask that anyone wishing to send flowers to honor Lucy's memory, please consider donating any amount you feel comfortable with to the American Cancer Society, City of Hope, American Heart Association, Pacific Lifeline, or the Rancho Cucamonga Public Library Foundation. With much love and gratitude, the Villanueva family.