Karen Joan Spurlock

Karen Joan Spurlock passed peacefully on the morning of Monday, June 6, 2022, after a brave battle with aggressive pancreatic cancer, at her home in Garden Grove, California, surrounded by her children.

Karen was born to Edith Louise Gimbel and Joseph C. Sullivan in Newark, New Jersey on January 3, 1944. She resided in Belleville, New Jersey with her parents and 4 younger brothers until 1959 when the family moved to Garden Grove, California. She graduated from Garden Grove High School in 1962 and married Paul Ray Spurlock in 1963.

Karen worked at Woodbury Elementary School first as a volunteer and later as a paid GGUSD employee, beginning in 1973 and retiring due to the pandemic at the end of the 2020 school year. She loved working with kids and even created an organized noontime sports program, positively impacting decades of Woodbury students.

Karen was an amazing person – she was smart, funny, kind, generous to a fault, and had a great sense of humor. She could fix anything – she was independent and capable. She was strong, tough, and never complained. She was selfless, always thinking of others before herself. She enjoyed thrift store shopping, swap meets, garage sales and estate sales. She loved animals, colorful things (including her many tattoos!), funny t-shirts, succulents and cacti, Angels baseball, and most of all her kids.

Karen was preceded in death by her son Dale, her husband Paul Spurlock, her father Joseph, mother Edith, and brothers Kerry and Colin Sullivan. She is survived by her two brothers Casey and Corey Sullivan, and by her three children April, Amber and Jim Spurlock.

A Celebration of Life is being planned, date to be determined.

“If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever.”