JAMES A. GARAVENTA
Fighting fires around the North Coast was the highlight of James A.
Garaventa's life, he told his family.
Yet after that first career, fresh out of high school, his adventures
continued -- as a building inspector, as a computer buff who defied his age,
and as a widely traveled camper who excelled at ethnic cuisine and landscape
photography.
''My dad was a wonderful photographer,'' Chico resident Kathleen Altenburg,
the oldest of his children, recalled Sunday. ''He'd wait for hours for the
right sunlight. He was an artist.''
Garaventa died Wednesday at his home in Lucerne from lung disease. He was
78.
Garaventa was born Sept. 15, 1928, in Ukiah, where he graduated from Ukiah
High School before working four years for the California Department of
Forestry and Fire Prevention during the 1940s.
For a quarter century, he worked as an independent building inspector, and
for many years lived along the banks of the Russian River in Forestville.
An outdoorsman drawn to rustic places, he enjoyed the nearby beaches and
''would spend hours making sand castles out there,'' daughter Barbra Penaflor
of San Rafael said. ''He was a bit of a hippie.''
Married and divorced four times, Garaventa spent some years in Marin
County, too, working for the county and for Fairfield Semiconductor in a key
technical support role.
''He was really into computers way before most people his age were into
computers,'' Penaflor recalled.
His painting hobby was soon eclipsed by digital photography, a passion he
continued while traveling in his motorhome to the 48 contiguous states during
retirement.
When asked why he didn't venture overseas, ''he always said, 'Why go
elsewhere, when there's so much of interest here?''' Altenburg remembered.
A gardener who grew standout tomatoes, he also experimented widely in the
kitchen with Moroccan, Thai and Italian dishes.
Along with his daughters in Chico and San Rafael, Garaventa is survived by
daughters Annette Whedon of Ukiah and Cindy Cervante of Novato, and sons James
M. Garaventa of Ukiah and Daniel A. Garaventa of Arizona. He also leaves seven
grandchildren.
A graveside service will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Ukiah Cemetery. The
family suggests contributions to the American Cancer Society.
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