She was born in Lima, Peru on March 15, 1935, to Estela and Carlos Medina. She was a good student, learned English at school and moved to the United States (Los Angeles California) with her parents and sister Teresa in 1946 not long after the end of WWII.
She attended Le Conte Junior High starting in 1947, where she got heavily involved in the glee club, the Troubadours, and made friends there that she kept her entire life. She then attended Hollywood High School from 1950 to 1953 where she continued to enjoy singing and all things musical.
While in high school she met her future husband, Carlos Galvez at a Xmas party in 1952. They hit it off as they both loved to dance and continued to do so during their entire life together. They were married in 1955 and had a son, Alfredo, born in February 1956.
She trained to be a legal secretary at Los Angeles City College, earning a 2 year degree. She worked full time in addition to being both a full time wife and mother.
She and husband Carlos got their first home in 1967 in Huntington Beach – it was always her dream to be by the beach. However Carlos’ career took him overseas to Spain in 1969 where the family spent 4 years based in Madrid before returning to the US. Upon their return Graciela and Carlos were based ‘everywhere’ (Alameda California, Lima Peru, back to Huntington Beach California for a couple of years, Miami Florida, Jeddah Saudi Arabia and Marietta Georgia before finally settling back in the original Huntington Beach house in 2000.
In addition to living in several different places during her life it’s fair to say that Graciela travelled to every continent except Antarctica.
While in Spain she learned to became an excellent cook – her carrot cake, bread pudding, lasagne and Thanksgivings turkeys were legendary
While living in Marietta she decided to go back to school and she got certified as a paralegal at Kennesaw College in 1986. She also got a cert from the American Institute of Real Estate in 1998 having completed a course for sales person.
Upon her return to Huntington Beach California in 2000 her main focus was to look after her mother Estela. Estela lived with Graciela and Carlos until 2009 and then had to be transferred to a facility providing full-time care. Graciela continued to see her mother nearly every day until she passed in 2012.
Around this time she was starting to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s and the diagnosis was confirmed around 2013.
Graciela is survived by her husband Carlos, her son Alfredo and daughter-in-law Joy.
The chapel visitation will be held on Sunday November 10 at Harbor Lawn – Mt. Olive Mortuary and Memorial Park at 11am, followed by a service at noon. In lieu of flowers, it is asked that you donate to the Alzheimer’s Association at act.alz.org
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