Pauline Estey

97, Woodland Hills

When she was 25, Pauline Estey took a road trip with a friend, crossing the country from Boston to Los Angeles. The journey changed her life. Loving the warm climate, Estey immediately decided to move to the West Coast, and once she arrived, she thrived.

“She was shy in high school,” her sister, Peggy Pressman, explained. “She was 6 feet tall and blonde. The kids teased her. But once she settled in California, she became a social butterfly. She just had a knack for cultivating lifelong friendships.”

Estey worked at Columbia Pictures in Culver City for more than three decades, performing a variety of tasks, including clerical and accounting. When Estey retired in 1988, Pressman said, they needed to hire three people to replace her because she was so versatile.

One thing Estey couldn’t do was drive a car. L. A. freeways terrified her, and she never applied for a license. But then, she had so many friends, she never had a problem finding a ride around town.

Estey did love to travel by other means though, taking cruises to Europe and China.

She also loved gardening. After she moved into the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, she spent hours in the facility’s rose gardens, crafting bouquets for residents.

Often she’d use the f lowers as centerpieces for the big, joyful lunches she’d organize at the retirement home.

Estey’s friends returned the favor when she was hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus last spring, bringing her papier- mache bouquets. Estey recovered but died on Aug. 18 from complications brought on by the disease. She was 97.

She is survived by her sister, two nieces and a nephew. Her partner of many years, Louis Nuccio, preceded her in death.

“Pauline was the kind of person that people just adored,” Pressman said. “Twenty- five years after she retired, people she worked with were still going out of their way to visit her. She was sweet and decent. She brought a lot of love into this world.”