The Memorial Wall

Cheri Renfroe Yousem passed away peacefully at home on October 31st, 2020, after a long and courageous battle with Parkinson's Disease.

From her roots growing up in Lawndale, California to Beverly Hills, Cheri lived a life full of family, philanthropy, and adventure. Aside from spending time with her children and grandchildren, Cheri dedicated her time to various charitable causes that were close to her heart.

Volunteering her services was Cheri's passion, including years spent championing causes through United Hostesses Charities, Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, LACMA, and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

Cheri's other passion was world travel and mountaineering; she spent time exploring some of the farthest reaches of the world and climbing its highest peaks.

Cheri is survived by her sons Jordan (Jessica) and Joshua (Maja), and her three beloved grandchildren, Leo, Connor, and Sadie.

As a young boy on summer break in the 1940s, David Traitel and his beloved quarter horse, Miss Buck, joined a seasoned crew of career cowboys herding cattle in the Sierra Nevadas.

This rugged and novel escapade over several summers in David's early teens, provided grist for myriad nostalgic accounts spun for family and friends over the years. By far, his favorite tale was the story of eating a daily breakfast of whiskey and cornflakes with a crusty, trail-savvy cowboy named Earl. This lifelong divining rod of curiosity led to a wide array of interests, passions and pursuits over 87 years, most notably in business, philanthropy, politics, travel and included an enduring affinity for animals and Western art.

David, the former owner, Chairman and CEO of Nutro Products, Inc. - a high-end pet food company ¬- passed away peacefully in his sleep October 31 at his home in Indian Wells, Calif. He had suffered from Parkinson's Disease.

David was born in New York City on July 8, 1933. His parents moved with David to the Benedict Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1934, before opting for a complete lifestyle change, purchasing a working cattle ranch in Smith Valley, Nev., in the early 1940s.

David attended San Rafael Military Academy (now the Marin Academy) and the University of Nevada, Reno where he was a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity. After embarking on his career, David earned an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

David joined the Navy in the early 1950s, rising to the rank of ensign, attending Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Naval Station Newport, R.I. David went on to serve as a Public Information Officer in the Navy.

It was in a public speaking class at the University of Nevada, Reno that David met Joan Garner who would become his beloved wife of nearly 65 years, and who survives him. David gave a speech that Joan deemed the best in the class, catching his eye when she raised her hand to indicate her enthusiastic approval in response to a request for a vote by the professor. Joan was a Kappa Alpha Theta at the University of Nevada, Reno. David gave Joan his fraternity pin the year after they met and the couple married in Nevada in December of 1955. They moved soon after to Santa Monica, Calif .

In 1975, with no prior experience in the pet food industry, David purchased Nutro Products, Inc. Founded in 1926 to make dry food for dogs and foxes, David envisioned growing Nutro into a natural, super-premium health food for dogs, a new concept that created an immediate following among professional breeders, kennel owners and vets. Unlike most pet food manufacturers at the time, Nutro bypassed supermarkets, selling its products only at pet stores such as Petco, feed stores and veterinarian's offices.

Nutro became a market disruptor, beginning with the development of an unorthodox formula in 1985 that featured chicken, lamb and rice. In 1990, Nutro was among the first to introduce a single-protein-source food for dogs called Natural Choice, with a lamb-and-rice formula that contained no added chemicals or artificial preservatives. Natural Choice also made food for cats.

By the late 1980s, Nutro expanded, making its products available throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. In 1992, Nutro began making canned food as well as a line of biscuits and treats. Nutro was acquired by Bain Capital in 2006 and, later, by Mars, Inc. in 2007.

In his early career, David worked in public relations for Ramo-Woolridge, the predecessor of aerospace pioneer and giant TRW, Inc. He later joined Electo-Optical Systems (EOS) from 1959-1969, serving as Vice-President of the division purchased by Xerox Corporation. He subsequently served as Executive Vice President of Walker and Lee, Anaheim, Calif., and Chairman of the Board and President of Sunbeam Lighting Corp., Los Angeles, Calif., from 1969 to 1972.

At the time of his death, David was the chairman of Straight Arrow Ventures, a venture capital private equity company based in San Francisco, Calif. He had recently sold his controlling interest in Denver, Colo.-based Boa Technology, a cinching system that replaces lacing for sports brands.

David served as an overseer at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, beginning in 1996, later serving as chairman of the board from 2008-2010 and as a member of the Executive Committee. He was also a member of the Board of Overseers of the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., as well as a benefactor since 2000 of the San Francisco Opera, where David and Joan in 2008 inaugurated The Great Singers Fund, to provide support in attracting the world's best known singers.

Whether in the form of an opera, a book or a gritty championship battle won by his adored Lakers, David had a fondness for engaging stories. He was the teller of more than a few tales, revered for his turn of a phrase, quick wit and dry humor. In addition to his childhood remembrances of wrangling and cowboys, he regaled family and friends with humorous anecdotes told creatively and with pitch-perfect delivery.

David resided in Pasadena, Calif., for 40 years before moving to San Francisco. He also lived in Indian Wells, Calif., and Glenbrook, Nev.

In addition to his wife, Joan, he is survived by children, Dee Anne (Michael) and David (Lori); grandchildren Shelby, David (Ali) and Marisa; and one great-grandchild.

The actor who is remembered for his participation in various Mexican soap operas suffered from some illnesses such as Parkinson’s and pneumonia

This October 30, the entertainment world is in mourning, since actor Ricardo Blume passed away at the age of 87.

The native of Lima, Peru, whose career took place mainly in Mexico, is remembered for his participation in various soap operas, including ‘Simply María’, ‘Carrusel de las Américas’ and ‘Care with the Angel’, as well as ‘Marimar’ and ‘María la del Barrio’, where he shared the screen with Thalía; as well as more than 60 plays in Peru, Mexico and Spain.

The news was confirmed by the journalist Patricia del Río in the newspaper El Comercio, where he assured that the actor suffered from some diseases such as Parkinson’s and pneumonia.

“ Yes, he passed away. He was very sick, he was 87 years old with Parkinson’s and pneumonia. It was already wrong. We knew it was a matter of hours, and they told us that he had no quality of life, “said Patricia, noting that the actor died in a hospital and was accompanied in his last minutes by his daughter and wife. “He was in the hospital, with his daughter and wife .”

While the National Association of Interpreters of Mexico also shared the news through a message on their Twitter account.

“The #Directive Council and the #Vigilance Committee of @ANDIMexico, communicate the sensitive death of the partner and interpreter Ricardo Blume. Our deepest condolences to his family and friends ”

For his part, Cecilia Blume, the interpreter’s niece, released a message on Twitter.

”My uncle Negro, the last of the Blume Traverso, the one who appeared on TV and was” famous “! a nice family, happy and very united. Today my uncle Freddy, Eddy, Jackie, and my dad met! they will be playing guitar, Cajon, maracas and even spoons, until very late today!“, wrote.

Just 22 and working as a file clerk on Wall Street to support her poetry habit, Diane di Prima turned heads when she mailed in several of her works to City Lights, the legendary San Francisco bookstore and publishing house.

City Lights had just spun the literary world off its axis with the release of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” and it seemed audacious that an unknown poet from Greenwich Village would be seeking the attention of a publisher that had become a citadel for an emerging generation of poets, novelists and deep thinkers.

Curious, Ginsberg and author Jack Kerouac drove to New York to meet her, impressed by her verse and her spunk. The three became lifelong friends and cohorts in the Beat movement, dramatically changing the course of 20th century literature.

Prolific and daring until the end, di Prima died Sunday in San Francisco, said Sheppard Powell, her partner of 42 years. She was 86 and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

A free spirit who viewed life as a candy sampler of opportunities and pleasures, Di Prima published more than 40 poetry collections, novels and memoirs, championed other feminist authors, was arrested for obscenity, read a fiery one-line poem titled “Get Yer Cut Throat Off My Knife” at the Band’s final concert, once lived at Timothy Leary’s psychedelic commune in upstate New York and was named San Francisco’s poet laureate by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“I wanted everything — very earnestly and totally — I wanted to have every experience I could have, I wanted everything that was possible to a person in a female body,” she explained in an interview with Jacket magazine.

Di Prima was born Aug. 6, 1934, in Brooklyn, N.Y., the lone daughter of an attorney and a school teacher. Her parents had lofty and rigid expectations of their daughter, who was more drawn to the impulses and activism of her maternal grandfather, an Italian immigrant and self-proclaimed anarchist.

She said she began writing when she was 6 and knew she wanted to be a poet by the time she was 14. She attended a distinguished elite high school that drew academic high achievers from the city’s five boroughs and put in two years at Swarthmore College before dropping out and moving to Greenwich Village, then alive with jazz musicians, writers and counterculture artists.

Early on she met with Ezra Pound, the acclaimed poet and critic who was then confined to a psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C. She visited him daily, often over lemonade. And she wrote verse at a furious pace.

Her first collection of poems — “This Kind of Bird Flies Backward” — was followed rapidly by “Dinners and Nightmares,” a collection of short stories, and “Memoirs of a Beatnik,” which became an underground classic for its raw portrayal of the early Beat years.

But it was the multipart epic poem “Loba” that was held in the highest regard by her admirers. First released as a work in progress, the poem was seen by many as the female counterweight to Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

“How was woman broken?

Falling out of attention.

Wiping gnarled fingers on a faded housedress.

Lying down in the puddle beside the broken jug.

Where was the slack, the loss

of early fierceness?

How did we come to be contained

in rooms?”

She also co-founded the Floating Bear, a newsletter that ultimately got her arrested when she published several poems that the government regarded as obscene, including a piece by William S. Burroughs, the elder statesman of the Beat generation. The charges were later dropped.

She raised five children and took pride in being a dutiful mother. When she left a cocktail party early one evening to look after her daughter, she said Kerouac screamed, “Unless you forget about your babysitter, you’re never going to be a writer.”

She disagreed, saying that raising children helped give her the discipline to organize her schedule and set aside time for writing. Husbands were another matter. She was married twice, each ending in divorce.

Di Prima eventually grew weary of New York City and began to roam. She moved to the Catskills, then Leary’s LSD-tinged commune and spent a year traveling the country in a VW bus, reading poetry in storefronts, galleries and universities. She finally landed in San Francisco as the Summer of Love was fading. She never left.

In San Francisco, she became a member of the Diggers, a group of street activists who collected food for the lost souls who wandered Haight-Ashbury. She studied Buddhism, Sanskrit and alchemy. When pressed on her political leanings, she allowed she was likely an anarchist, much like her grandfather. In 2009, she was named poet laureate of her adopted hometown.

“At the root of it, she was a scholar and an off-the-charts genius,” Powell said. “When she got interested in something, she’d want to get to the core of it.”

Her final major collection of poems, “The Poetry Deal,” was published in 2014. As often was the case, City Lights was her publisher.

Di Prima continued to write until weeks before her death, though her arthritis forced her to use a stylus on a cellphone to write. Sometimes, Powell said, she’d dictate her verse, often to him.

She is survived by Powell, two brothers, five children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Percy Schmeiser, farmer known for fight against Monsanto, dead at 89. Schmeiser is remembered by his son as a dedicated father who loved taking his grandchildren fishing. Schmeiser, who had Parkinson's disease, is survived by his wife, Louise Schmeiser. 

John Schmeiser told CBC News his father died peacefully in his sleep Tuesday afternoon at the age of 89. Schmeiser had Parkinson's disease.

The Saskatchewan farmer became famous in the late 1990s after agrochemical giant Monsanto took him to court. The company had found its genetically modified canola in Schmeiser's field, but he had never paid for the right to grow it. Schmeiser insisted the seeds had blown onto his field in the wind and that he owned them. Monsanto sued him, and in the end, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the farmer had knowingly violated Monsanto's patent. 

As the world media descends on Percy Schmeiser and his battle with Monsanto, neighbours and scientists question the validity of his defence. Schmeiser's son John said the court case was only one part of his life, as it happened when Schmeiser was getting ready to retire. John said he'll remember Percy as a dedicated father, grandfather and businessman. 

"I am privileged to this day to be his son," John said. "Growing up, it was very, very evident right from the beginning about how concerned he was about his community and his family." Schmeiser served on town council in Bruno, Sask., for several years, both as mayor and as a councillor. He also ran a couple of businesses and ran a farm, John said. "We were always busy," John said. "And he always made time to be with family. And when grandchildren started to rise, it just took it to another level for him because he had more children to be around."

Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser’s battle with Monsanto, which went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, has been turned into a Hollywood movie called Percy. Although the movie is endorsed by Schmeiser’s family, there are concerns about its accuracy. Zakreski saw the movie at the Calgary Film Festival with Schmeiser's son, John, and said it was a strange and surreal experience. Though he said the film got more things right than wrong, there were some aspects where the director took artistic license. "The trial was a lot more intense and a lot more dramatic than it was portrayed," he said. "It took place in Saskatoon on a larger scale and it drew an incredible amount of interest. There were media scrums going into and out of court. It was a very high pressure situation."

"He was just an extraordinary person. I haven't met someone like him … an example for us all."

John said memories about his father that stand out are his passion for fishing and sharing his skills. "He would go to great lengths to take his grandchildren, when they were four, five, six years old, he would take them fishing. And he just loved doing that," John said. "For all of us, that was a very, very special thing and it was so important to him." Schmeiser would be filled with pride when he saw his grandchildren catch their first fish, John said. "I don't know who had a bigger smile, [Schmeiser] or one of his grandchildren," John said. "For him, that was just an incredible sense of accomplishment, to see them catch fish."

John said he hopes his father is remembered as that dedicated grandfather, passionate fisher and someone who would do anything to see his community succeed. Schmeiser would be there for his customers at the farm equipment dealership at any time, and even in retirement watched the weather to make sure they had a good harvest, John said. 

Schmeiser is survived by his wife Louise. The two had just had their 68th wedding anniversary on Oct. 2. John said they met at a dance in Bruno, Sask., and lived there their entire lives. Now, Bruno is home for him and his siblings forever, he said. 

In a video recorded in September 2020, the Schmeisers thanked people for their support through the legal battle and for the opportunity to have their story told in a recently released movie called Percy. (Mongrel Media/Vimeo)

Source: Saskatchewan

With Philip J. Hirschkop, he brought Loving v. Virginia to the Supreme Court, which struck down laws against interracial marriages.

“Dear Sir,” began the letter from Washington that found its way to Bernard S. Cohen at the American Civil Liberties Union in June 1963. “I am writing to you concerning a problem we have. Five years ago my husband and I were married here in the District. We then returned to Virginia to live. My husband is white, and I am part Negro and part Indian.”

The letter, from Mildred Loving, went on to explain that when she and her husband, Richard, returned to Caroline County, Va., to live, they were charged with violating Virginia’s law against mixed-race marriages and exiled from the state.

“It was that simple letter that got us into this not-so-simple case,” Mr. Cohen said later. The not-so-simple case was Loving v. Virginia, which Mr. Cohen and his co-counsel, Philip J. Hirschkop, eventually took to the Supreme Court. In a landmark unanimous ruling in 1967, the court said that laws banning interracial marriage, which were in effect in a number of states, mostly in the South, were unconstitutional.

Mr. Cohen died on Monday at an assisted-living center in Fredericksburg, Va. He was 86.

His son, Bennett, said the cause was Parkinson’s disease.

The Lovings had married in 1958. Five weeks later they were in their home in Caroline County when the county sheriff and two deputies burst in and arrested them. They pleaded guilty to violating the state’s Racial Integrity Act and were sentenced to a year in jail; a judge, Leon M. Bazile, suspended the sentence on the condition that they leave the state and not return together for 25 years.

By 1963 that restriction had begun to chafe, since they had relatives in Virginia and Ms. Loving missed “walking on grass instead of concrete,” as she put it. A relative noticed her distress.

“I was crying the blues all the time, so she said, ‘Why don’t you write Robert Kennedy?’” she recalled in a 1992 interview with The New York Times. “She said that’s what he’s there for.”

Mr. Kennedy was the attorney general at the time, and Ms. Loving did indeed write to him, asking if the national civil rights legislation then being formulated would provide any relief. Mr. Kennedy in turn suggested she write to the A.C.L.U., where Mr. Cohen was a longtime volunteer.

Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he was not particularly well versed in the relevant areas of law. He faced other obstacles as well, not the least of which was Judge Bazile, whose rulings in the case included this oft-cited declaration: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.”

He began by filing a motion to set aside the sentence, but Judge Bazile took no action on it for months; the Lovings became concerned that they’d been forgotten. But in 1964 a law professor introduced Mr. Cohen to Mr. Hirschkop, who had only recently graduated from law school but knew civil rights litigation. He helped steer the case onto a path that eventually brought it to the Supreme Court, where, Mr. Hirschkop said in a phone interview, he argued that the Virginia law was a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution and Mr. Cohen argued that it was also a due process violation.

“Under our Constitution,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in finding in their favor, “the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.”

Bernard Sol Cohen was born on Jan. 17, 1934, in Brooklyn. His father, Benjamin, was a furrier, and his mother, Fannie (Davidson) Cohen, was a homemaker.

He grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from the City College of New York in 1956 with a degree in economics. He graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1960.

Bennett Cohen said that, after the Loving case, his father did a lot of work in environmental law. In one case, he said, “the Jewish boy from Brooklyn represented some Christmas tree farmers whose whole crop of Christmas trees was destroyed by acid rain.” That lawsuit, he said, forced nearby power plants to reduce their pollution.

From 1980 to 1996, Mr. Cohen served in the Virginia House of Delegates, where among his accomplishments were measures that restricted smoking — a hard sell in a tobacco state like Virginia. Over the years, the story of the Loving case was told in a 1996 Showtime movie; the 2011 HBO documentary “The Loving Story,” directed by Nancy Buirski; and the 2016 feature film “Loving,” based in part on that documentary.

Richard Loving was killed in a car accident in 1975. Mildred Loving died in 2008.

In addition to his son, Mr. Cohen is survived by his wife of 61 years, Rae (Rose) Cohen; a daughter, Karen Cohen; and three grandchildren.

In 1994, when Mr. Cohen received a distinguished service award from the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, he gave an acceptance speech in which he lamented that public opinion of lawyers had turned negative, focusing on a few big-dollar civil verdicts and stereotyping anyone seeking redress in the courts as being part of an overly litigious society.

“There seems to be months of trial time available for Pennzoil to sue Texaco and for Polaroid to sue Kodak,” he said, “but cluttering the court with everyday people has become bad form, bad habit, bad business.”

He worried, he said, about the chilling effect.

“In a society of laws, driven by centers of economic and financial power,” he said, “if the courts are not available for the average person to seek justice, then the average person will not receive justice.”

Josephine Crack, better known as ‘Jo’ was born in 1935 into a hard-working and highly respected family of grocers in the village of Lound, near Lowestoft. She had an older sister, Rosalie, who was disabled, and her life was centred at home and the small village school where she thrived.

Following her early education Jo went on to the grammar school in Lowestoft and it was a visit from the school’s headmaster which persuaded her parents that Jo had the potential to go to university. Jo headed to University College London where she studied German and earned her degree and certificate in education. She went on to spend a year in Germany and when she returned to England her first teaching post was in Rochester, Kent.

Then, in 1965, Jo moved to Maidenhead and started work at Maidenhead High School, now known as Newlands Girls’ School, as a German teacher. Jo stayed at the school for 27 years, seeing its gradual conversion to comprehensive schooling and its change of name to Newlands School in 1973. During this time she became deputy head, a post she later shared with joint deputy head Janet Longstaff. Janet said: “She was lovely to work with, really supportive, sympathetic, she was great.”

According to Janet, Jo was also an excellent teacher, producing ‘very successful’ exam results, as well as being principled. “She always claimed to be firm and fair, but she was always great fun and very sociable,” said Janet.

“She taught my sister an awfully long time ago, but when I told my sister she’d died, she said ‘Jo’s lessons were such fun’, she said ‘we would all end up giggling and Jo would be giggling too’.

Jo and Janet became good friends, and Celia Phillips, a fellow teacher, was another very good friend Jo met at school, the pair going on to share a flat and then a house together. Throughout her life Jo cherished friendships, and kept in touch with school friends, family friends, foreign friends, village friends and colleagues.

She also loved music and literature, and enjoyed sport, from playing hockey at school, to badminton in her thirties and short tennis following her retirement in 1990. As a spectator, eventing and horse riding came first for Jo, followed by football, golf and snooker. Although she liked to travel and explore different countries, in her retirement Jo was happy with spontaneous days out and short breaks in England.

Jo had Parkinson’s and moved to Boulters Lock Residential Care Home in Sheephouse Road in 2015.

She died at the home on Sunday, October 11.

Mercer Island, Washington - Jane Gates, age 78, passed on peacefully, surrounded by family, on October 3, 2020. Jane was known for her laugh, dry Midwestern one-liners, and her ability to make every moment a teaching moment.

Jane was born on March 4, 1942, in Wichita, Kansas, to John and Joanne Darrah, the second of five kids, sister to Tom, Cindy, Jody, and Bo. After graduating from Wichita High School in 1960, Jane got a degree in Education in 1964 from Kansas University. She also majored in having fun as a member of Pi Beta Phi.

Jane then headed to California to teach and met Navy man and future attorney, Mike Gates, at a party. Jane and Mike were married June 28, 1966, and shared a life of laughter, love and fun for nearly 55 years.

As mom to Kim and Adam, the kids remember mom as in charge of everything, the "mayor of Arden Park" and excessively generous. As Nana to Kim and Ron Thunen's children, Ella, Charlotte and Maddy and Adam and Silvia Gates' children, Zephyr and Colton, Jane found her true calling.
Jane taught first, second, and third graders for nearly 20 years. Described as a book-loving Mary Poppins, students continued to track down Mrs. Gates for many years.

Ever the Midwesterner and a 30-year resident of Sacramento, Jane loved her retirement life split between Palm Dessert and Mercer Island, Washington.
Jane was a consummate do-er, effortless entertainer, gardener and gourmet cook. She enjoyed a strong cup of coffee, a Manhattan cocktail, and anything sweet. Jane loved playing games with friends, from tennis and golf to bridge and mahjong. Jane was famously the queen of the frugality and the thrifty bargain.

Jane and Mike were perhaps happiest when travelling the world. From Europe to China to Washington, DC, Jane's warm smile and engaging personality started many great conversations throughout the years. Jane was easy to be around.

Jane suffered and died from Multiple System Atrophy.

Jerome Abraham Gliksman passed peacefully into eternal life on Saturday October 3, 2020, in Rolling Hills Estates with his loving family by his side.

Jerry was born April 30, 1940, in Middletown, Pennsylvania to Josef and Julia Gliksman, Polish immigrants who escaped Poland in 1938 arriving in New York on the Queen Mary. The family, including Jerry’s sister Jeanette, moved to the Bronx in New York when Jerry was young, and when Jerry was fifteen, the family moved to Los Angeles. Jerry attended Hollywood High and went on to UCLA earning a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in structural engineering. It was at UCLA where he met the love of his life, Kathleen Lenihan, in the bridge room. This was also the beginning of his life-long love for anything UCLA.

Bruin basketball and Bruin football were staples in the Gliksman household. Mentioning USC beating UCLA in any year would earn some trash talking, as his grandsons, Rob, and Andrew, so loved to do with him in later years.

In 1962, Jerry and Kathy ventured to Vegas and eloped much to the disapproval of their parents. But 58 years of marriage pretty much erased any doubts how much they love each other. Their five children and thirteen grandchildren are living proof!

Jerrys chosen career path all started because, as the story goes, the engineering major didn’t require a foreign language. How lucky for the aerospace industry because he truly found his calling as an engineer and later as program manager for numerous satellite programs. He started at Northrop Grumman on the F5 program, then went to work for STL, which was eventually bought by TRW. When he joined the Space Park team in 1965, he spent the first ten years as lead structural engineer for several satellite programs, and as his career progressed, he was Program Manager for numerous satellite programs such as ROCSAT, TDRSS, DSP, and GRO. We imagine there are others that cannot be named due to national security.

He loved being an engineer and was especially proud being Program Manager for DSP and GRO (his baby). He was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal in 1992 for his GRO work; and received numerous accolades over the course of his career. He was well respected and loved by all who worked with him and for him.

He gave so much of his time to his kids in all aspects of their lives. Softball and baseball were a constant and at one point or another, he coached all five of his children. From 1978 to 1984, he was one of the girls’ softball varsity coaches at Rolling Hills High School. He also co-founded the PVP Girls Softball League on the Peninsula and was the president for many years. He was known as "Jer" which was a sign of absolute respect. He played tennis his entire life until a shoulder injury permanently sidelined him from the sport he truly loved. He would have loved to play professionally but he chose engineering over tennis when his counselor told him he couldn’t do both. On most weekends, he played tournaments at South End.

He loved to garden, so after his weekend tennis matches, he would come home and work in the yard!

He loved the Dodgers! For many years, he had season tickets to the Dodgers and loved taking his kids and his grandkids to the games. Such fond memories and great times we shared with him!

With all his spare time (HA!), he was civic minded too! He sat on the Traffic Commission for the City of Rolling Hills Estates, was president of the Dapplegray Lanes Property Owners Association for many years and led the DLPOA Architectural Committee.

He tutored not only his children but other kids as well. "Define your variables" was his motto. And oh did he love to dance! He so enjoyed the "happy feet" gatherings, and he sure had some moves.

With all his accomplishments, his family was most important to him. He was devoted to his family, and his unconditional love for his wife, kids and grandkids was extraordinary.

Jerry was truly a great man. He was decent, kind, and honest. He had character, integrity, and honor. He had an unmatched work ethic, uncompromising loyalty to family, had a wickedly wonderful corny sense of humor, and he was brilliant. He fiercely fought the disease that robbed him of his life way too young. And through it all, he never complained - he just accepted the challenges and tried to find a way to overcome them. And as the challenges kept coming, he kept fighting until his body just couldn’t anymore.

He is our hero and our guiding light. He exemplified a life well-lived. He showed us how to take care of each other in sickness and in health, how to laugh (even in the darkest hours), and how to love each other. Life will never be as bright without him with us. He will forever be loved and greatly missed!

He is preceded in death by his parents Josef and Julia; his sister Jan; and his granddaughters Elizabeth Wieland and Julia Wieland. He is survived by his loving wife Kathy, his children: Melissa (Ron) Wieland, Kristi Turchi, Joe (Clarissa) Gliksman, Mary Gliksman, and Pattie (Dan) Frandson; his grandchildren: Rob, Andrew and Ashley Wieland, Megan, Jamie, Kelsey and Mia Turchi, Robert and Samantha Gliksman, Kristina, and Daniel Frandson; his nephew Kris (Erin) Hermes.

Michael was born in England on August 29, 1936 and passed away at 84 peacefully in his sleep early September 27, 2020 in La Quinta, California due to Parkinson’s Disease.

He was a very gentle, kind, and humble Gentleman whose passion was sailing, fishing, garden design, cooking, ceramic repair and loved building Department 56 Christmas Villages. He was a great Host who loved entertaining family and friends. 

He is survived by his wife, Jan, his three children in England, Nick (Tania) Whishaw, Catherine Whishaw, James (Newby) Whishaw and his stepdaughter Jacquie McClure.  His 5 grandchildren Tim, Natasha, Telisa, Jack and William, who all live in England.

He was in sales all his life and loved public speaking.

Michael, you will be deeply missed but your legacy will continue through your loving wife, your children, and your grandchildren, and by all the people that your wonderful life has touched.

A Memorial Mass is scheduled for October 24, 2020 at Sacred Heart Church at noon.

In lieu of flowers, may we suggest donations be made in Michael’s memory to Parkinson’s Resource Organization,74-090 El Paseo #104, Palm Desert, CA 92260 www.parkinson’sresource.org