Gloria E. Hanson, who nourished youngsters with hot meals and kindness as a longtime school cafeteria manager, died Wednesday of ovarian cancer, her family said. She was 80.

Mrs. Hanson cooked and served lunches to elementary and middle school students in the San Juan Unified School District during the 1970s and 1980s. She previously spent several years as a yard-duty worker in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District.

She was in the cafeteria by 5 a.m. each school day to prepare lunch for hundreds of children, teachers and staff. Years before microwave ovens and pre-packaged meals, she spent hours kneading dough for fresh bread, slicing raw vegetables for cole slaw and stirring sauces in giant pots.

"Her fondest memories were when the cooks actually cooked everything themselves," said her son, Paul. "She really enjoyed making food from scratch. It was her motherly instinct."

Mrs. Hanson went to work cooking for schoolchildren to support her own family as a single mother. She earned extra money during summers as a cook at recreation camps.

She attended night classes at American River College to earn an associate degree in nutrition and was active in school labor issues as a region leader for the California State Employees Association.

Born in 1931 in Dearborn, Mich., Mrs. Hanson married and had four children. The family lived in Detroit, where she was a homemaker who made quilts, her children's clothes and a wardrobe for "my older sister's entire Barbie doll collection," recalled her daughter Amy.

The family settled in the 1960s in Sacramento, where her marriage ended in divorce. She built a new life working full time while raising her three youngest children at home. She graduated from community college, paid off her Rancho Cordova house and retired by age 62.

After her children were grown, she worked for a few years at a used-book store. She volunteered with the Rancho Cordova incorporation effort and later served as an election poll worker. She took classes at a senior center and enjoyed painting in oil and watercolor.

Besides her duties ordering food, cooking and cleaning as a school cafeteria manager, Mrs. Hanson worked the serving line during lunch. She was an affectionate, outgoing woman who liked meeting people and made friends easily with children.

"If a kid was having a bad day, she'd slip him an extra cookie," her son said. "She really like interacting with all the kids who knew her as 'the cafeteria lady.' "

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