Joanne Nuckols, 1943 ~ 2025
South Pasadena mourns the loss of Joanne Nuckols—preservationist, civic leader, mentor, neighbor, and friend —who died peacefully on Tuesday morning, August 19, 2025. She was a guiding force behind the city’s historic-preservation movement and a pillar of its community life.
For decades, Joanne stood at the front line of the fight to protect South Pasadena from the 710 Freeway extension, a project that would have carved through the city’s neighborhoods and ruined South Pasadena forever. She was a major force that turned a small town’s resolve into a region shaping victory—organizing, testifying, and educating with a calm command of facts and process. In public forums and the halls of government, she proved that ordinary residents, working together, can and did stop extraordinary harm.
Her leadership reached far beyond any single project. Within the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation (SPPF), Joanne became a touchstone—steady, exacting, and generous with her time and resources. She mentored new advocates, decoded preservation law, shaped local vision, and insisted on accuracy because she believed exactness is what protects places people love. In recent weeks she was still writing, still coaching, and still urging officials to choose transparency and stewardship over expedience.
Joanne’s influence is literally archived into the city’s memory. The South Pasadena Public Library houses much of the Joanne Nuckols Archive, a testament to the breadth of her research and advocacy on planning, preservation, and the 710 fight—work she always understood as part of a civic relay in which knowledge must be handed forward.
Her work also carried across city lines. This spring, she urged Los Angeles leaders to landmark the Maycrest Bungalows—a precise, principled appeal that paired historic value with a call to align preservation and affordable housing on the same site. Even at the end of a long public life, Joanne was modeling how to argue for a city that remembers while it makes room.
The community knew her not only as an advocate but as a presence: at meetings, at school and sports events, at neighborhood gatherings. Friends describe her as both approachable and formidable, factual and fair, who could make complex issues plain and inspire others to show up prepared. In the words of one remembrance, she was a “living archive” and “moral touchstone” for South Pasadena.
Joanne is survived by her husband of 60 years, Tom Nuckols; her children, Tina Kistinger and husband Ken, Brett Nuckols and wife Sonal; and grandchildren Sydney and Nyle Nuckols. The family thanks the community for their patience and understanding as arrangements progressed with a public celebration of her life to follow.
South Pasadena will feel her absence in the coming months as city documents and plans evolve, the questions she would asked from the podium, and in the confidence she would give others to
do the same. The most faithful way to honor Joanne is to keep going—to read the packets, learn the rules, show up, and defend the places that make a community whole. Carry the torch. Protect the town and thrive.
In lieu of flowers and gifts, the family welcomes memories and photos shared via email: [email protected]
The Nuckols Family urges donations in memory of Joanne Nuckols:
• South Pasadena Preservation Foundation (SPPF): SPpreservation.org
• Huntington Memorial Hospital Cancer Center: Giving.huntingtonhospital.com
