John Schubert, Sonoma County historian and court bailiff, dies at 83

As a kid, John Schubert found that he loved the Guerneville area more than any other. He grew up to become a fountain of lower Russian River history, and to go to work each day with a local artifact pinned to his shirt.

The easygoing, studious and perpetually intrigued Schubert was for almost 40 years a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy assigned primarily to courtroom security. He was proud of the vintage and rare badge that proclaimed him: Bailiff.

“Schubert was the only person I ever saw with one,” Sheriff Mark Essick said.

Schubert, who in addition to his law enforcement career served in the Marine Corps Reserve, died June 6. He was 83.

“He ended up being the go-to guy for history of the Russian River area,” said friend and colleague Gaye LeBaron, the Sonoma County history writer and retired Press Democrat columnist.

LeBaron added, “John was also extremely personable, and just great fun. What a gift he’s been to the region.”

A resident of Guerneville for 67 years, Schubert authored five books of local history. For decades he also shared tales of Russian River history in columns published in The Paper and the Sebastopol Times & News.

The Sonoma State University alumnus was dealing with advancing cancer when, just last year, he donated to the SSU library his massive collection of lower Russian River memorabilia and artifacts.

“He started collecting even before he knew quite why,” LeBaron said.

Among them: stacks of old postcards, photographs, posters, flyers, matchbook covers, menus, news clippings, tickets, playbills, ledgers, invoices, receipts, brochures, journals, manuscripts, court documents, letters, albums, stock certificates, books, maps, postmarked envelopes, scrapbooks, family histories and bumper stickers, you name it.

Sources of the collectibles included the annual Bohemian Club encampment in Monte Rio, Rio Nido big-band music venues, the railroads that hauled timber and tourists, the Slug Fest, the Quicksilver Mine, Stumptown Daze parades, Russian River Rodeo, Monte Rio Water Carnival, the Russian Chapel at Fort Ross and the various Russian River floods.

Schubert’s collection came to the college library in 88 boxes that when lined up ran for 53 feet. Lynn Prime, SSU’s special collections librarian, said the collection is a treasure trove that will appeal to students and others interested in myriad aspects of life in the region.

Schubert, Prime said, “never did anything in half measures.”

“He was such a Renaissance guy,” she said. “And it shows in his collection.”

The library’s John Schubert Russian River Collections is open to the public by appointment.

Historian and retired Sonoma County History and Genealogy Library staffer Katherine Rinehart counts herself fortunate to have witnessed Schubert as he conducted in-depth research, and to have helped him organize and process the collection in preparation for donation to SSU.

“There’s no better way to get to know a person,” she said, “than to go through everything he collected since 1959.”

Energetic and eager for opportunities to make history come alive, Schubert constructed in the backyard of his and longtime partner Sarah Brooks’ home in Guerneville a replica of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, complete with a station and working signals.

“His fascination with history was something else,” said Doug Broberg of Guerneville, a friend and fellow history buff and retired deputy sheriff.

One of Broberg’s favorite pieces of John Schubert trivia: “He had a casket he kept in his house.”

Schubert used the coffin decades ago as a prop for an elaborate Halloween party and afterward simply kept it standing upright against the wall in his living room.

Beyond his lifetime of studying, collecting and sharing Russian River history, Schubert worked to save what he could of it. He played important roles in the conservation efforts that preserved the historic, downtown Guerneville bridge — built in 1922 — and the 1885 Marshall House that now graces the Russian River Senior Center.

Schubert would often don a top hat and tails, then entertain and enlighten visitors to the pioneer section of Guerneville’s Redwood Memorial Gardens cemetery. He was for decades a pillar of the Russian River Historical Society, which he co-founded, and other organizations that celebrate, share and preserve history.

For all that did for his community, Schubert was awarded a Spirit of Sonoma Award just last May. And in March the Sonoma County Historical Society presented him its Jeanne Thurlow Miller Award in recognition of his lifetime of historical work.

John C. Schubert was born Aug. 9, 1938 in San Francisco. From an early age, he spent summers on land at the Russian River’s Guernewood Park that a grandfather had owned since 1914.

Schubert was a teen living and attending high school in Southern California when he conducted his first piece of research into western Sonoma County history. He wrote a report on Fort Ross, the settlement the Russians established in the early 1800s on what would become the Sonoma Coast.

“Everybody in that class – with the exception of the teacher – though I was goofy, talking about Russians in California building a fort,” Schubert told The Press Democrat in 2018.

Following young Schubert’s graduation from Rosemead High School in 1956, he studied at the state Maritime Academy and worked for a time as a merchant mariner.

He would share that he was somewhat adrift when a well-known and revered deputy sheriff on the Russian River, Pete Bever, one day pulled up alongside him in his patrol car. Schubert recounted to columnist LeBaron in 2012 that Bever called out him, “You're just bummin' around, kid. Come and ride with me.”

Schubert liked what he saw, and not long later signed up as a summer deputy. He was hired full-time in 1965.

One of his three sons, Keith Schubert of Redmond, Washington, said the new lawman figured out quickly that working patrol on the river was not for him. “He didn’t want to arrest his friends,” the younger Schubert said.

So John Schubert became a bailiff assigned to the Sonoma County courts, and he stayed.

The badge he received early on designated him a bailiff. Long ago, the sheriff’s office stopped making any distinction between deputies who work in the courts and those who work the streets. But Schubert, ever an aficionado of old ways, kept wearing his keepsake badge.

In the early 1970s, while working the courts, he enrolled at Sonoma State University and earned a degree in anthropology. He also joined the Marine Corps Reserve, serving two stints and earning the rank of sergeant.

He worked as a bailiff until his retirement in 1998. Until 2004, he was on-call and reported for duty when needed for tasks that included transporting suspects and standing guard over suspects undergoing hospital care.

The lawman and historian married and divorced twice, and he spent the last 38 years with life partner Brooks.

He is survived by her and by his son in Washington, his other sons, Hilmar Schubert and Preston Schubert, both of Santa Rosa, and by five grandchildren.

A memorial service is at 1 p.m. June 30 at Pleasant Hills Memorial Park in Sebastopol.

Before he died, Schubert asked that memorial contributions be considered to the Russian River Historical Society, russianriverhistory.org, or to his other favorite organizations: Friends of Guerneville School, Monte Rio School, Montgomery School, Santa Rosa Junior College Foundation, Sonoma County Historical Society, Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society, Sonoma County Library, Russian River Rotary Club and Sonoma Land Trust.