Gloria Consuelo Lipps née Peña

Gloria, 94, was born on December 10, 1926, in Cimarrón, New Mexico and was raised in Taos, NM, the oldest of eight children to Elijio “Lee” Peña, and Emilia “Emma” Peña née Luján. She passed of natural causes, peacefully and gracefully, on December 29 , 2020. Gloria Peña was a very, mischievous little girl who loved life and loved dancing! Gloria attended St. Joseph’s School K-8 in Taos and graduated from Loretto Academy in Santa Fe, NM in 1945. Gloria went away to college in Chicago, IL, graduating with her degree in nursing in 1949. She worked as a registered nurse for 40 years. In 1948 she met the love of her life, Bill Lipps. Bill was recently back from Burma, India, China, and California. He was honorably discharged from the US Army, and was an Accounting student at the University of Illinois. Bill and Gloria, wed on August 6, 1949 in Taos at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. They moved to southern California in 1952 and raised five children. In 1979 Gloria was selected to attend the prestigious Nurse Practitioner’s program at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center and became one of the first Nurse Practitioners in the state of California. She went to work running the County medical clinic in West Los Angeles just as the AIDS epidemic broke out in 1980. West LA was the epicenter of the epidemic. In 1989, Bill and Gloria retired to Albuquerque, NM, and then to Sun City West, AZ. She especially loved Taos her entire life and visited often to pray over the graves of her parents. After 57 years of devotion to each other, Bill died in February 2006. Gloria’s fondest wish was to be reunited in Heaven with her husband, her mother, Emma, and her father, Lee Peña, who was the Town Marshall of Taos and was killed in the line of duty just before Christmas, 1944, when he was shot while breaking up a disturbance outside a bar on the Taos Plaza. Gloria was still in high school. Gloria Lipps is survived by three sisters, Marcia Peña-Thompson of New Paltz, New York, Rosella Trujillo née Peña of Albuquerque, and Theresa “Tisha” Greenman, née Peña, of Moreno Valley, CA. She also leaves four children, eleven grandchildren, six great grandchildren, and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews. One daughter and four brothers pre-deceased her. Services were held at the Veterans National Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix where she was laid to rest next to her husband. An additional service will be held at Sierra Vista Cemetery in Taos NM following a mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Due to Covid-19, the Taos committal will be determined at a later date.