A 2022 remembrance: The lives that left an enduring imprint on Sonoma County

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

George Eliot

As 2022 concludes, we revisit some of our Sonoma County and North Bay friends, neighbors, colleagues, mentors and personalities who died this year.

To reflect on their lives and stories, on what they brought to our community, might serve to inspire us. It might help also to assure that they are not forgotten.

Carlos Tamayo

Carlos Tamayo was a good son.

And it was of vast benefit to his parents and countless others, among them aficionados of healthier-than-most tacos and burritos, that he was also a driven, gifted businessman.

As a young man with an advanced degree in international business, Tamayo envisioned himself living abroad and carving a niche in global commerce.

Then his dad, Jose Tamayo, went jobless when a railroad eliminated his position. Having long yearned to start a family business, Jose and his wife, Mary, asked eldest son Carlos to help them.

He researched and found that just then, in the mid-1970s, tortilla makers were thriving in California — and a growing town called Santa Rosa didn’t have one.

Carlos Tamayo rewrote his career plans and with his folks opened La Tortilla Factory on Dutton Avenue.

From modest beginnings, Tamayo and his younger brothers grew the business into America’s No. 1 nationally distributed tortilla maker, and one of Sonoma County’s largest and most community-minded employers. The company introduced legions to more nutritious, lower-fat tortillas.

The modest and genial Tamayo had neighbors who knew he went by Chuck, and he was a good guy, but who had no recollection of him disclosing that he’d dreamed up the Santa Rosa “Mexicattessen” that went national as La Tortilla Factory.

He died July 29 at age 76.

Ann Gray Byrd

The Rev. Ann Gray Byrd, who came of age in the 1950s as one of very few Black people living in Santa Rosa, was for the most part gracious and diplomatic.

But she was not if she perceived, for example, that her children were being threatened because of their race, or that she and her demands for equal treatment were about to be yet again patronized.

As much as she revered civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Byrd made clear she was not an “MLK pacifist.”

Byrd would tell you compliant, polite behavior doesn’t work in situations like the one her father, Gilbert Gray, and six other Black men confronted in 1962 at Santa Rosa’s Silver Dollar Saloon.

They walked in on a Sunday afternoon, took seats at the bar and ordered drinks. The barkeeper, accustomed to applying Jim Crow treatment to such patrons, refused to serve them.

Gilbert Gray, who’d cofounded the Sonoma County chapter of the NAACP in 1953, and the others held their ground for a time, then walked out — and filed a lawsuit that persuaded the bar’s owner to change his ways.

Byrd, who worked all her life against racial injustice, died July 7 at 86.

Lucy Kortum

Lucy Kortum was forever out of doors and in awe — of a stirring, timeless scene of nature, or a manmade wonder of architecture and craftsmanship.

Kortum was not content to simply hope that the magnificent landscape or edifice would be honored and protected for future generations. She applied her formidable will and intellect and powers of persuasion to assuring that it would happen.

Her participation in the realms of nature conservation and historic preservation, she once said, “Was not only inspiring and important, but it was fun!”

Much of the fun she found in activism derived from the reliable presence and collaboration of Bill Kortum, her late husband and for decades one of Sonoma County’s most prolific and best known environmentalists.

They’d been married 61 years when Bill Kortum died in December of 2014 at age 87.

Lucy Kortum was still digesting the results and implications of the November elections, still cheering her Golden State Warriors, when she died Nov. 30 at 94.

Brook Tauzer

Among the many admirers of Santa Rosa Junior College are some who find it astonishing that since the acclaimed school’s founding in 1918, it’s been led by only five presidents — and that Brook Tauzer wasn’t one of them.

Tauzer seemed right at home in the president’s office in 1970. But he was there only temporarily, during the search for a successor to president No. 2, Randolph Newman.

Tauzer had come to SRJC as a social science instructor in 1955, and from the outset did extraordinary things for the institution, its staff and its students.

He was revered as he rose from a teacher to the dean of instruction, to interim president, to vice president for academic affairs. Prominent among his contributions are his two comprehensive books of SRJC history.

The champion of education died July 14 at age 95.

John Dunlap

As a boy in Napa, future state lawmaker John Dunlap decided that the left, though often derided, was, for him, right.

Dunlap recalled being 8 when the public school system’s displeasure with his left-handedness came to a head.

“In the third grade,” he recounted nearly a decade ago, “they made a major effort to make me write with my right hand. But I tell you, I got them.

“You know what I did? I flunked the whole third grade!”

Despite the setback, Dunlap was still writing with his left hand when he became an attorney and when, in 1966, he was elected as a Democrat to the California Assembly. He would go on to represent portions of the North Bay in the state Senate.

Through his 12 years in the Legislature, Dunlap was potently drawn to progressive advocacy.

He died March 7 at age 99.

Margie Mejia

Margie Mejia was resolute that descendants of Native Americans have an inalienable right to reclaim usurped land and use it for the benefit of the tribes.

Mejia declared to a U.S. Senate committee in 2011:

“I am the chairperson of the Lytton Rancheria and follow a long tradition of leaders who have been responsible for the safe keeping of the tribe and its members. I have lived the highs and lows of my tribe’s status every day of my life, from the devastating effect of poverty, alcoholism, and drug abuse, and having our tribal status terminated, to the economic success we have finally been able to enjoy though our restoration.”

Mejia was key to her Pomo tribe’s success in creating the San Pablo Lytton Casino in Contra Costa County, then using profits to purchase land near Windsor currently being developed with homes for tribal members.

Mejia, who died Oct. 27 at 66, was instrumental, too, to the Sonoma County Indian Health Project.

Walt Smith

As a kid in west Sonoma County, Walt Smith would climb well up into a Douglas fir and for hours study the airplanes approaching or leaving the county airport. From that point on, he aimed high.

He graduated from El Molino High School in 1967 and joined the Marines. He went to Vietnam and suffered combat wounds that put him out of the war.

Smith returned to Sonoma County and became a commercial pilot, then he flew firefighting bombers, then he joined the state police and was assigned as a bodyguard to Gov. Ronald Reagan.

Future chapters of his extraordinary life saw him fly the Sonoma County Sheriff’s helicopter, rise to the rank of brigadier general in the California Army National Guard and work a career with the Federal Aviation Administration, including as regional manager based at the Sonoma County airport.

Smith died Feb. 10 at 72.

Arch Richardson

Stewarts Point, the northern Sonoma Coast hamlet roughly halfway between Fort Ross and Gualala, might aptly have been named Richardsonville.

Ancestors of Archer “Arch” Richardson first set roots there a few years past the Civil War. They built a rural empire that included logging, shipping, ranching, railroading and the purchase of vast tracts of land.

When it came time for Arch Richardson to run the show, three previous generations of his family had operated a hotel, a saloon and the Stewarts Point Store, the latter of which might be the oldest continuously family-owned mercantile west of the Mississippi.

Like his ancestors, Richardson was a pillar of community life in greater Stewarts Point-Sea Ranch-Annapolis-Gualala, and he was a valued friend and ally of the native Kashia.

He died Dec. 11 at 75.

Jack Stuppin

Landscape artist Jack Stuppin of Sebastopol did not make Sonoma County’s cloud-crowned hills, seascapes and other panoramas more beautiful by interpreting them in hyper vibrant yellows, reds, oranges, purples, greens and blues.

But his vividly colorful works caused some viewers to look at the natural scenes differently and, possibly, with a new appreciation.

One art critic suggested, in so many words, that galleries could save some electricity while exhibiting his works.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal in 2016 after a visit to a showing at ACA Galleries in New York City, Peter Plagens advised, “The gallery could ratchet back the lighting a bit; Jack Stuppin’s landscapes have enough visual horsepower as it is.”

Stuppin died Nov. 29 at age 89.

Len Tillem

Sonoma’s Len Tillem was, by profession, an attorney. But fundamentally, the New York-reared Tillem was a showman, a teller of stories.

He got a radio legal-advice program on Sonoma Valley’s little KVON in 1990. The next thing you knew, he was answering calls and busting up a huge audience on San Francisco’s then hugely popular KGO.

A listener would come on the air and Tillem would ask, “So, why ah YOU callin’ a LOY-yah?”

Maybe the caller sought advice about writing a will or dealing with unpaid parking tickets. But what got Tillem going was a call along the lines of a woman asking what she could legally do to determine if there’s really any bowling involved when her sister and husband go out every Tuesday night.

Tillem died Jan. 13, at 77.

Andy Skikos

Andy Skikos grew up on a farm in Ogden, Utah, and might have stayed and worked there all his life but for something that happened year after year.

Winter.

Skikos and his wife, Katie, were feeling torn between freezing or starving to death when they quit Utah for Sonoma County. In 1963, they opened a small fruits-and-vegetables stand on Santa Rosa’s Sebastopol Road.

Andy’s Produce was born. It grew to five locations before the Skikoses focused their attention on their market on Sebastopol’s Gravenstein Highway North.

Katie Skikos was 81 when she died in 2016. Her husband Andy died March 18, at 88.

Eugene Hal Caster

Eugene Caster was a student at Santa Rosa’s Piner High School when he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1967.

Private Caster went to Vietnam and was wounded in battle three times. His final injury occurred Sept. 29, 1968. Grenade fragments struck his spine.

Permanently disabled but undaunted, Caster returned home to Sonoma County, married, started a family and discovered a most rewarding and essential line of work: He advocated for military veterans in need of services and benefits.

He once wrote, “For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.”

Caster died Oct. 28 at the age of 72.

Mary Fuller McChesney

Sculptor, writer, art historian and environmentalist Mary Fuller McChesney thought otherwise.

She didn’t go for it when, in 1951, the state of California told her that to keep her job teaching adult-education art classes, she must sign a pledge disavowing radical political beliefs. She quit.

McChesney realized she wouldn’t get rich creating sculptures of animals and figures inspired by pre-Columbian and African mythology, but she refused to sell out in order to sell.

She happily risked alienating people through her unabashed feminism and leftist politics.

Though her sculptures weren’t widely known, she did see pieces placed in parks, plazas and other public venues.

McChesney died May 4 at 99.

Kathleen Finigan

Kathleen Finigan was outraged by much — certainly by what she viewed as chronic disregard of the suffering of people living on streets, and by the institutional racism that she believed fuels police brutality.

Finigan wrote a year ago that the world was turning upside down. “But here we sit. Somewhat stupefied and complacent. Shrugging our shoulders and tsk-tsking about this miserable state of affairs.” She urged greater activism.

In 2021, Supervisor Susan Gorin appointed Finigan to the county Human Rights Commission, which has created a human-rights award in her name.

Finigan died Sept. 30. She was 80.

Bill Pedersen

Longtime Santa Rosa furniture merchant and generous community benefactor Bill Pedersen, who died Jan. 3, would likely be satisfied with granddaughter Megan Arabian’s summation of him.

“He was interested in others,” she said. “He loved a good story. He could make you laugh until you couldn’t breathe.”

Beyond those qualities, Pedersen was for about 45 years a sterling keeper of Pedersen’s Furniture, for generations one of Santa Rosa’s most venerated downtown businesses.

Pedersen donated vast amounts of time, dollars and effort to Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the Junior Miss competitions and the community at large.

He died at 94.

Harry Bosworth

The store that Harry Bosworth ran in Geyserville was no Walmart. There were never long lines inside the Bosworth & Son shop.

Bosworth figured out that a retailer in Geyserville would need other enterprises to pay the bills and keep his mind engaged.

“If I had to live on the revenues from the store alone it would be slim pickins,” he said in 2012.

Bosworth came also to run Geyserville’s cemetery and water works, and to serve as one of the town’s busiest volunteers — and its unofficial mayor.

He died Nov. 8 at the age of 84.

Chuck LeMenager

Plaques at both Santa Rosa City Hall and downtown’s Central Library bear the name of Chuck LeMenager.

Through the years LeMenager served on the City Council, 1963-67, a key mission of city leaders was to build a new municipal administration center and a successor to the 1904 Carnegie Library.

LeMenager resigned in ’67 to accept an appointment by Gov. Ronald Reagan as the state Director of Housing and Community Development. He later became a developer of large, planned residential communities.

LeMenager died Dec. 19. He was 96.

Joe Rochioli Jr.

Joe Rochioli Jr. once said this about why he grew wine grapes in Russian River Valley, a pioneering pursuit that brought him praise as the region’s prince of pinot noir:

“I was never in it to make a lot of money. I did it for the pride.”

From his first plantings of French pinot clones in his family’s Westside Road vineyards, Rochioli rightly took pride in the quality of the wine.

Jesslyn Jackson of Russian River Valley Winegrowers said of Rochioli, “He was integral to putting the Russian River Valley on the map and establishing our region as a prime destination for exemplary wines, particularly pinot noir. ”

Rochioli died Aug. 20 at 88.

Barry Latham-Ponneck

Barry Latham-Ponneck had serious issues with capitalism, militarism, Zionism, racism, sexism, other isms.

One of the region’s most committed peace-and-justice activists, Latham-Ponneck was 64 and ailing when his name was added to Sebastopol’s Living Peace Wall in 2015. He said then, “I’m still trying to make a difference in the world, trying to figure out why there’s so much pain and hatred and so many people suffer so greatly.”

The founding member of Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center died Sept. 15 at 71.

Bob Benziger

Bob Benziger never claimed to have the greatest nose for wine, nor to be the brains of Glen Ellen’s acclaimed Benziger Family Winery.

But he was widely regarded the heart of the operation.

Benziger was for 35 years the head of hospitality at the winery, a job that allowed him full rein in developing and operating the hugely popular tractor tour.

He was a star to legions of visitors, and also to the winery’s employees and trade partners.

Benziger died Dec. 23 at 70.

Polly Fisher

It was a sister and a voracious appetite for beauty, life experiences and knowledge that brought Polly Fisher to the Santa Rosa Symphony in 1978.

A former high school humanities and creative writing teacher, Fisher was hired to manage the orchestra as its executive director. She’d learned of the position from her sister, Betty Musser, then a violinist with the orchestra.

Fisher took to the tasks of managing the Santa Rosa Symphony with the same verve, joy and aplomb that typified every facet of her life.

She died Dec. 17 at 90.

Ken Tominaga

There are lovers of sushi in and around Sonoma County who hold that there was no dining experience equal to having Ken Tominaga present you one of his specialty rolls or other delicacies at Hana Japanese Restaurant in Rohnert Park.

The soft-spoken Tominaga was a master whose patrons regarded him and his food with awe. Fellow chefs regarded him a role model.

Tominaga died May 23. He was 61.

Lenny Weinstein

By trade, Monte Rio’s Lenny Weinstein was a sign painter.

He was also an artist, hiker and environmentalist committed to preserving the beauty and vitality of the lower Russian River region.

In the 1980s he noticed blue ribbons on 70 redwoods that Caltrans intended to remove from alongside Highway 116 in the Monte Rio area. Weinstein led a successful effort to save the marked redwoods, at one point adorning them with construction-paper hearts of pink, purple and orange.

He died Dec. 4 at age 87.

Sally Watson

Sally Watson lived the last third of her remarkable life in a Santa Rosa cottage graced by gardens and cats and books. Many of those books were historical novels that she wrote.

Her first, published in 1954, was titled “Highland Rebel.” It was set in Scotland in 1745 and starred a fearless girl who yearned to be out fighting the British.

In addition to writing 24 books, Watson was at various times a competitive Scottish Highland dancer, a World War II member of the Navy WAVES and the holder of a black belt in judo.

She died March 11, at 98.

Bill Konrad

Bill Konrad was not your typical certified public accountant.

He was gregarious, loved a good party. “He had a personality that people gravitated toward,” said one of his daughters, Annette Kluse.

Konrad had a full, prosperous career with a global accounting firm, took mandatory retirement in 1999 and promptly purchased the elegant, 1881 Madrona Manor outside of Healdsburg.

He and his wife, Trudi, thrived then as innkeepers/restaurateurs.

Konrad died Oct. 19 at 82.

Adele Pruitt

For most of her 99 years, Adele Pruitt of Ukiah created art, restored fine pieces of art and blew the minds of people who trained to be artists.

One student of Pruitt, Jeanette Carson, recalls the teacher eyeing her landscape and saying, “Your mountain is too high.” Carson replied, “I just can’t lower a mountain.”

Pruitt came back, “You’re an artist. You can do anything.”

Says Carson, “I’ll never forget how that made me feel — terrified and empowered at the same time.”

Pruitt died Feb. 20.

Jean-Marie Heskett

Jean-Marie Heskett lived for many years with memories of her childhood experiences in the Philippines before she sat down with her son, Sonoma County radio DJ Michael “Doc” McCoy, and put them in a book. Not a happy one.

At the outset of World War II, Heskett was 6 and living with her parents in Japanese-occupied Manila. They were imprisoned for three ghastly years in Japan’s Santa Tomas internment camp.

The book, “Through My Mother’s Eyes,” was published in 2008.

Heskett died Oct. 28 at age 87.

Fred Groverman

Lifelong Petaluma resident Fred Groverman was a sheep rancher, veterinarian, 4-H leader and powerhouse in many aspects of public life in southern Sonoma County. Groverman Hall at Petaluma Valley Hospital bears his name because his leadership was key to the health care center being built.

He died Feb. 12 at 88.

John Gallagher

John Gallagher was a tough-minded criminal prosecutor who became a widely admired Sonoma County Superior Court judge. On his own time, he pressed the Catholic Church to deal more aggressively with the scourge of child sexual abuse by priests.

The Santa Rosa resident died Oct. 28 at 84.

Ray Templeton

Ray Templeton was hailed by many as “Mr. Montgomery” because of the immense talent, pride and spirit he exhibited through the years that he announced basketball games at Santa Rosa’s Montgomery High School.

Templeton was often asked to help, too, with myriad other events and activities at the school. His answer was reliably yes.

He died Sept. 3 at 59.

Rob Reyes

Rob Reyes was happy cooking at downtown Santa Rosa’s La Rosa Tequileria, which he co-owned, and when off work he was happy riding his bicycle with the co-workers he cherished.

The ride on Aug. 23 was an exemplary one until Reyes and his bike slammed into a bollard intended to block cars from entering the West County Trail near Graton.

Reyes was killed. He was 52.

Dick Hafner

To work a ranch was an ambition for Dick Hafner until he purchased 100 acres in Alexander Valley in 1967. Hafner Vineyard became his full-time focus after he retired as a public affairs and events officer at UC Berkeley.

Hafner died Nov. 17 at 96.

Stephen Gale

An ardent believer in the potential for people in government to lift up lives, Stephen Gale led the Democratic Party central committee in Sonoma County before becoming district director for Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena.

Gale died March 19 at 69.

Phyllis Gurney

Phyllis Gurney — teacher, fitness instructor and trusty supporter of numerous nonprofits serving humanity and animals — touched many lives through the nearly 30 years she lived in Sonoma Valley.

Bill Lynch, the retired newspaper publisher and civic leader, said that through her doggedness, kindness and “indomitable attitude about life,” Gurney made the valley a better place.

She died Jan. 22 at 76.

Kirk Veale

Kirk Veale of Santa Rosa sold cars, invested in real estate, encouraged women to become entrepreneurs, supported the Salvation Army and put up a good many billboards, including the electronic one alongside Highway 101 in Rohnert Park.

Veale died Feb. 15. He was 82.