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                   Gwen was a good student - a story has it that Gwen would go to school and tell her teacher her father's name was "George Washington Abraham Lincoln Turner" and with that remark all the teachers knew Gwen. It was Gwen's choice not to go to college and this disappointed her mother very much. Gwen became a dance instructor to children and had a very successful school. She taught all kinds of dancing- tap, ballet, singing and dancing, etc. Her schools were all throughout the Salinas Valley. She designed the costumes and helped the Mothers make them.

Gwen did not want to move to San Francisco but May insisted and it proved to be a wonderful move. Gwen became involved in many San Francisco activities and had many friends. She also took up ice skating and she met her husband Lemual Matthews there. Lem was an attorney and Gwen later became the president of the San Francisco lawyer's wives. She and Lem had a very active social life and were happy with their adopted son George and their dogs. They continued to live in San Francisco but also had a beautiful home in Glen Ellen in the Sonoma Valley.

Gwen Turner Matthew was a lady of energy, intelligence and humor, land she brought these qualities to bear on the many facets of her life as a career woman, mother, wife, volunteer and friend. Gwen was never one to sit still and let life pass her by. Nor was she ever a person to duck responsibility or avoid work helpful for the benefit of others.

Shortly after our country entered WWII, she applied for and got, a civilian "hush-hush" position in the office of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the U.S. 4th Army Headquarters. Additionally she volunteered to chauffeur and entertain troops awaiting transfer over-seas for combat duty. At the end of WWII, she volunteered to assist in the chauffeur's motor pool to serve the visiting foreing delegates during the birth of the United Nations in San Francisco.

A lover of music and dancing, she put her talents to work in the 1930's by organizing and successfully running her own dancing school (primarily for children), for approximately 10 years. Even after her years as a dancer ended, Gwen and her sisters, Pat and Dorothy "the Three Turner Girls" would never hesitate to perform their numbers (usually loaded with slapstick), which delighted their audiences.

Gwen liked to get involved in everything in her younger years. She was a natural leader, serving as President of the San Francisco Skate and Ski Club, as President of the Lawyers Wives Club in San Francisco and in taking an active role in the St. Brendan's School Parents Group. She enjoyed and even saw the humorous side of being "Madam Chair - Person". How many of us here today will remember her famous oft - repeated classical speech in which she could out- perform the best of our wind-bag politicians?