Stella Tucker, who spent decades carrying on a Tohono O'odham tradition of harvesting saguaro fruit at Saguaro National Park near Tucson, died January 9, her family announced last week. She was 71.

Tucker learned the tradition from her forebears — one of whom, Juanita Ahil, harvested from the desert lands west of Tucson that became Saguaro National Monument, then Saguaro National Park. The federal designation threatened the practice, but the family obtained a waiver and has continued to harvest saguaro fruit there every year, using a traditional picking pole made of saguaro ribs.

Arizona Highways readers might remember Tucker from With a 10-Foot Pole, our March 2017 story on Tucker and her daughter Tanisha, who has joined the annual harvest. As Kathy Montgomery wrote:

At 69, Tucker walks with a cane and is no longer up to the rigors of picking. So she sits under the shade of a ramada while Tanisha demonstrates. Using a picking pole, made of saguaro ribs and a crosspiece of greasewood, Tanisha pushes and pulls the fruit to the ground. Then she demonstrates how to use the hard, sharp base of the spent blossom to cut through the fruit's thick skin before scooping out the seedy red pulp with her thumb. She tells participants to leave the pods face up on the ground next to the saguaro.

"It's just to say thank you, and also to bring rain for the next harvest," she says.

Montgomery said of Tucker's passing: "Stella was a remarkable woman, almost singlehandedly keeping the tradition of the annual saguaro harvest at Saguaro National Park alive. Even on the Tohono O’odham Nation, the tradition is fading. Stella was unfailingly generous and welcoming to anyone who wanted to learn about the harvest, how to make syrup from the fruit and its importance in the Tohono O’odham culture. I still have some saguaro syrup from our visit. We save it to share with others, as Stella did with us."

Also in 2017, in Edible Baja Arizona magazine, the elder Tucker voiced her concerns about the future of the practice. “It’s a dying culture," she said. "One day nobody will know how to do it. I want them to learn. It’s really important to me that they learn and keep this culture going.”

Memorial services were planned for Mission San Xavier del Bac, on Tohono O'odham land near Tucson.