Joseph Sheeks

Joseph Sheeks was a Pearl Harbor veteran who went into law following the war and through a productive, 50-year career co-founded the Petaluma Valley Hospital Foundation and served as the mayor of Mill Valley and a director of the Golden Gate Bridge District.

A well-read, well-traveled and reliably well-dressed man, Sheeks died Jan. 10 at a Petaluma assisted-living residence. He was 96.

"He read history and he was interested always in ideas," said his wife of 47 years, Burney Sheeks. "He had the best vocabulary of anyone I have ever spoken to.

"And I tell you this: I love the fact he washed his own socks."

Sheeks practiced law mostly in San Rafael and for a time was a partner of Bill Bagley, the former California assemblyman. He did a great deal of work in the health care field and was key to the creation of the Association of California Hospital Districts.

Sheeks grew up in Valparaiso, Ind., and in 1940 joined the Navy rather than run the risk of being drafted into the Army. He was assigned to the destroyer USS Monaghan as a communications officer.

At Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the Monaghan quickly set underway, fired upon attacking Japanese planes and rammed and sank a midget submarine.

Sheeks later compiled his wartime journal into memoirs he titled, "Shady Lady: My Experiences on a Fighting Ship." He recalled standing on the deck amid "the rattle of machine gun fire and the angry spang of bullets close by."

He served until 1947 and achieved the rank of lieutenant commander. Following his discharge he resumed his pursuit of a career as an attorney, earning a law degree at the University of Chicago.

He worked for a time for Industrial Indemnity Insurance Co. before he opened a practice in Marin County with Bagley and a second partner.

He was elected the mayor of Mill Valley in the 1960s and served on the board of the Golden Gate Bridge District from 1968 to 1970.

He and his wife and their blended family lived in Belvedere until the couple moved in 1972 to Petaluma.

A stepdaughter, Windsor Yellen of Colorado Springs, Colo., remembers that on Saturday mornings, the former naval officer would write up a list of chores on a legal pad and present each of the four kids with his or her assignments.

"The list was long, and it was tedious," Yellen said. The kids had to complete each task and sign it off, then find if their dad approved the performance enough to sign it off, too.

And on Sunday mornings, Sheeks would stand at the bottom of the stairs and sing the tune of the "Reveille" bugle call. That meant get to the car now for church, or walk.

"He was a real structured person," Yellen said. "He raised us to be structured."

Sheeks also possessed a lively sense of humor. Though he dressed impeccably, he delighted family and friends on holidays by wearing one of his two pairs of tartan plaid pants.

"We called them his party pants," Burney Sheeks said. "He was always game for some fun."

In addition to his wife in Petaluma and his stepdaughter in Colorado, Sheeks is survived by daughter Jennie Haug of Napa, son Jay Sheeks of Sebastopol, stepdaughter Ashley Cleveland of Franklin, Tenn., 16 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Services are at 11 a.m. Saturday at his church, Calvary Chapel in Petaluma.