They may have moved away a couple of months ago and gotten
settled into their new home thousands of miles away, but the
Hendrickson family still feels like Gilroy is home.
They may have moved away a couple of months ago and gotten settled into their new home thousands of miles away, but the Hendrickson family still feels like Gilroy is home.
“We know we’re gone, but it doesn’t feel like it,” Russ Hendrickson said from his new home in Lakeside, Ore. “We lived in Gilroy for 36 years.”
And in the Hendrickson’s more than three decades in Gilroy, Russ and Nancy became one of Gilroy’s favorite couples, running a comedy theater company in town and teaching many of Gilroy’s youth.
And although the Hendrickson’s are gone, the Gilroy community refuses let them go without a proper goodbye. the couple will be back in town this weekend, and a celebration has been set at noon Saturday at the Krazy Koyote Bar and Grill.
“We had some very good experiences,” Hendrickson said. “It was a real nice time in our lives. If we could do it all over again we would.”
The Hendrickson’s moved to Gilroy in 1966 to take jobs as teachers. Hendrickson began at Gilroy High School and soon the couple found themselves acting.
“We got involved in community theater, and I got involved i teaching theater,” Hendrickson said. “And that went along until 1979.”
At that point, at the prodding of Nancy, Russ, who had been teaching some drama classes at the high school, decided to open up a small comedy theater company in Gilroy. That theater company was called Center Stage, and it quickly became a favorite place for some theatergoers.
“We started producing these comedies,” Hendrickson said. “Most of these people who will be there (Saturday) are coming because of that experience.
“In those years we did about 100 shows,” he said. “It was just a great experience. The regulars in the audience became our friends.”
The Hendricksons put on about five or six shows per year, including a musical each December that served as part of their New Year’s celebration. Russ directed the shows, Nancy produced them, and the couple’s five children often played a part in putting on the shows.
“We did the whole thing,” Hendrickson said. “They all took their turn running the theater, selling popcorn or tickets and running the lights.”
Among the many plays that the Hendrickson’s put on on Center Stage were “Nunsense,” which was performed three times, “Run For Your Wife” and “Foreigner.”
“Most of the shows, if I made a list of them, wouldn’t ring a bell,” Hendrickson said. “But they were either off-Broadway plays, Broadway plays or played in London. They were all good plays and were well-written.”
The family soon became synonymous with the local comedy theater.
“Wherever I went in Gilroy people talked to me about the shows,” Hendrickson remembered. “It was a labor of love. I was usually rehearsing two shows while performing one. … For us, it was a way of life.”
The Hendrickson’s theater company moved into a building next to Old City Hall, wheren the couple bought a restaurant in 1989. They planned to have the restaurant downstairs and theater upstairs, but just a few months later, the building was damaged beyond repair from the big 1989 earthquake.
“We lost just about everything,” Hendrickson said. “We spent the next six years rebuilding.”
Nancy had also sold her Valley Preparatory School in 1989 and Russ had stopped teaching, but because of the quake the couple had to come out of retirement and begin teaching again.
“By that time, my theater experience was behind me,” Hendrickson said. “South Valley Civic Theater hired me from time to time, which was an honor, but it was all sort of over.”
The couple also opened a home for autistic and down syndrome children at their home in 2000, and they had several foster children live in their home before that.
They discovered the beauty of Oregon’s coast while going to visit daughter in Washington, and finally decided early this year to retire.
The couple still plans to frequent Gilroy because Nancy’s parents and two of their children still reside in town.
“Gilroy has been very good to Nancy and me,” Hendrickson said.
