Denise Marie Brady
Obituary
Denise Marie Brady (née Brown), 61, died on November 22, 2022, following a cardiopulmonary event. She is survived by her husband, James Lester Brady, her daughters Elisha Brady and Caitlin Brady, her son Christopher Brady, her sister Michelle Brown-Ramirez, and her aunt, Claudine Minchella. Denise was born in Fort Ord, California, on July 26, 1961, to parents Richard and Marie (née Minchella) Brown. During her life, she lived in Monterey, San Francisco, Saratoga, Santa Barbara, Ben Lomond, Milpitas, Campbell, Largo (Florida), Seminole (Florida), San Jose, and finally, Gilroy.
Denise graduated from Saratoga High School in 1979, UC Santa Barbara in 1984, and earned her Teaching Credential and Masters from National University in 2000.
In her 25 years of teaching at St. Cyprian, St. Christopher, and St. Catherine's, Denise made Social Studies a "touchy-feely" class with artifacts from fossilized dinosaur excrement to a Civil War pain bullet. She was fiercely protective of and loyal to her classes and truly loved each of her students, taking a personal interest in their growth and development. As a result, many of her former students cite her as the reason they either became teachers themselves or had the courage to follow their dream career.
Services will be 10 am, December 23, 2022 at South Valley Community Church in Gilroy. The family asks for donations in lieu of flowers to either St. Catherine's School in Morgan Hill, or any of the organizations working to end diseases that have affected her family: The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the American Cancer Society, the Parkinson's foundation, the American Heart Association, or the Alzheimer's Association.
Published in Gilroy Dispatch · December 19, 2022