Margaret Moore, 89
Monrovia, California

As a 20-year-old working girl during World War II, Margaret loved nothing better than a cup of coffee and a 10-cent hamburger. Later she worked in sales, got her real estate license, became a tax adviser at H&R Block, and was the best fisher in the family. "She loved to travel, but she could get rambunctious," says daughter Charla Hutcheson, one of Margaret's two children. "At a game reserve in Africa I took a picture of her shaking a rhino's tail." On a balloon safari, "she was so enchanted watching the herds of giraffes gallop below, I thought she would fall out." Even when she couldn't remember what day it was, "she went bowling three times a week," Charla adds. One of Margaret's favorite songs was "When the Saints Go Marching In"; she died last December, at a dementia care facility in Alhambra, California.

— Frank J. Yuvancic