PADRES Contra El Cáncer (parents against cancer)

Ruby Oliva Cedillo Memorial Fund

Ruby Oliva Cedillo, the late wife of California State Senator Gilbert A. Cedillo, had a penchant for underdog. She helped the homeless, visited county probation camps through her church ministry and had a special empathy for children with cancer. Read more...

They met as teenagers, two kids from East Los Angeles. Ruby Oliva was stylish and a graceful dancer. Gil Cedillo was a UCLA student and Chicano political activist. "It was the early 1970s, everyone was into psychedelic music," he recalls. "She shared my love for Tony Bennett."

The former high school quarterback was knocked off his feet by the girl from a rival school. Together, they took a three-decade journey - overcoming personal and career obstacles as Gil Cedillo rose from union leader to become an influential member of the California Assembly.

Ruby was 47 when she died June 10 of cancer after battling illness for years. Gil knows he lost his better half.

"People say they like Gil, but they loved Ruby," Cedillo says, a sentiment echoed by the Los Angeles Democrat's many friends in the Legislature.

Those friends organized a Mass in Ruby's memory at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Assemblyman Dario Frommer, an old friend, called Ruby the "center of gravity in Gil's life."

"She kicked him in the butt when he needed it and kept him on course," Frommer said.

The former office manager used the same resolve and sweet persuasion to motivate Cedillo's phone-bank volunteers when he ran for the Assembly in 1998. He won even though few political experts thought he had a chance.

The community of itinerants at the Capitol, many of whom live hundreds of miles away, is used to working in a place where life often takes a back seat to personal ambition.

But Cedillo put his ambition on hold to attend to Ruby during the past year. He traveled to Sacramento only for crucial votes and hearings, and he won his primary race for state Senate largely in absentia.

"Family comes first," said Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes, D-Fresno, who called Ruby the "stabilizing force" in Gil's life.

"We're here to serve our constituents. But Gil did the right thing and voters understand."

Cedillo said Ruby's illness brought them closer. He shuttled her to pain management and chemotherapy sessions.

And when she grew weaker, he held her hand.

While she slept, he worked the phone to curry support for one the most-controversial bills this session. The measure, AB 60, would allow undocumented immigrants who are going through the legalization process to obtain driver's licenses.

Political advisers urged Cedillo to abandon the measure. Ruby encouraged him to fight for it.

It was natural for her to stick up for the underdog. She would nudge him to reach into his pockets when they passed homeless people on the street.

"She was my moral compass, my personal safety net," Cedillo says. "Through every difficulty, she was committed to keeping our family together."

Ruby was a longtime member of the Foursquare Christian Church and Gil worshipped with her in recent years. She ran a church ministry that visited county probation camps and admonished the young wards for the pain they were causing their parents.

"When she finished, they'd be all teary-eyed," Cedillo recalls.

Cedillo said Ruby drew on the personal experience of raising the couple's son, Gil Jr., now 27, and the tough neighborhoods they grew up in.

When Gil met Ruby he was sharing an apartment with an old high school buddy, Antonio Villaraigosa, who years later would become speaker of the Assembly.

Ruby was working in a job-training program for Gloria Molina - the first Latina elected to the Assembly and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

"Ruby said I sounded like (Molina)," Cedillo said.

The Chicano political movement was in full bloom in Los Angeles in the 1970s, nurturing a generation of leaders who would end up in the Legislature.

Many of them are now members of the Latino Caucus, the largest ethnic voting bloc in the Legislature. Cedillo - the son of a union steelworker and a garment worker - took a circuitous route.

He earned a law degree and served as a field deputy for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley before finding his calling as a organizer for the 42,000-member county employees union.

Ruby worked for the Los Angeles teachers union. By the early 1990s, Cedillo was running the county employees union.

Ruby was volunteering in numerous political campaigns, including traveling through the South with her husband in support of Jesse Jackson's presidential candidacy.

But as her husband was fighting to prevent the dismantling of the county health-care system, Ruby was battling a series of ailments that forced her to stop working.

In 1996, their life unraveled. Cedillo was pushed out of the union and Ruby discovered a lump on her chest.

"All of sudden I was unemployed, uninsured and my wife had cancer," Cedillo says, recalling an experience that would shape his legislative agenda.

With help from friends, they were able to get medical coverage. When her health improved, they mounted Cedillo's improbable race for the Assembly in 1998.

Soon after Cedillo arrived in Sacramento, Villaraigosa became the speaker. Cedillo got plum assignments, serving as assistant majority leader and chairing the Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, where he pushed through legislation to expand health care.

"My work on health and human services, home-care workers, cancer research, those are things Ruby was viscerally committed to," Cedillo says.

She also had keen political instincts and volunteered to work on Gov. Gray Davis' 1998 campaign.

On the day Davis was sworn in, Cedillo's chief of staff called him away from the governor's table at the Sutter Club to deliver the news that Ruby's cancer had returned. Dressed in his tuxedo, Cedillo flew home - a mission he repeated countless times until Sept. 11.

On that day, when the terrorist attacks closed the nation's air space, Cedillo drove home from the Capitol. He spent the final days of Ruby's life at her side.

"We counted our blessings daily," he recalls. "She never gave up. Whenever she would suffer a setback, she'd say,

'All right, we've got to come up with a plan.' That's the way she was."

Villaraigosa calls Ruby "the wind behind Gilbert's sail."

"She had an incredible faith in God," Villaraigosa says. "She was unwavering in her support for Gilbert and was amazing in her ability to weather years of illness with grace and courage."

Ruby was buried last Friday during a private ceremony in Southern California. Afterward, friends gathered at her favorite restaurant in East Los Angeles.

Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, who has known the Cedillos since his union days, says they grew closer after Wesson's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Ruby shared her fight with others and Gil got his courage from her," Wesson says, recalling a conversion he had with Gil.

"Before she took her last breath, he said she dictated a list ... things he should take care of, like Gil Jr. and their nieces and so on," Wesson says. "Then she was ready to go."

In lieu of flowers, Cedillo's family requests donations be sent to PADRES Contra el Cancer to improve the lives of children with cancer and their families

Make a Donation in Ruby's Honor