Agnes K. Rourke; Executive Secretary

Agnes K. Rourke of Ventura, a retired executive secretary, died March 21 during a visit with her son in Northern California. She was 86.

She was born Jan. 20, 1914, in Bisbee, Ariz., the daughter of a Norwegian copper miner and his Swedish wife. She went to school in Bisbee through high school and went on to Arizona State University, where she majored in mathematics.

After completing one year of college, she quit and returned home because her parents could no longer afford the expense during the Depression. For the next several years, she worked as an usher in a local movie theater.

Later, she moved to Phoenix where she worked her way up from teller to executive secretary to the president of First Federal Savings & Loan.

On Thanksgiving Day 1945, she was introduced to her future husband at a dinner hosted by her sister and brother-in-law. The next year she married Howard Rourke.

They moved to Ventura, where her husband worked for the Ventura County Welfare Department and served as its director from 1955 to 1975.

She loved traveling with her husband and their son, often spending time camping. After her husband retired in 1975, the couple traveled extensively throughout the country and to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. They owned a second home in Lake Tahoe where they spent much of their time after retirement.

She was preceded in death by her husband in 1999.

She is survived by a son, Robert, of Pleasant Hill; a stepson, Berkeley Rourke of Mesa, Ariz.; a sister, Gudrun Vercellino of Phoenix; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions in Rourke’s name may be made to a favorite charity.

Funeral services are scheduled at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Ted Mayr Funeral Home in Ventura with the Rev. Jim Bain of the First Presbyterian Church of Oxnard officiating. Burial will follow at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Ted Mayr Funeral Home in Ventura.