LAWTON SHURTLEFF

Lawton Lothrop Shurtleff A long time resident of the Bay Area (Moraga, Lafayette, Orinda) and a northern California businessman, died on April 2, 2012, at his home in Healdsburg, California, at age 97 of natural causes. Born Nov. 6, 1914 in Berkeley, California, he was the eldest child of Roy L. Shurtleff (co-founder of Blyth & Co., a pioneering investment banking company in San Francisco) and Hazle Lawton Shurtleff. He attended Tamalpais High, then graduated from Piedmont High School, from the University of California at Berkeley in June 1936, and from the Harvard Business School with an M.B.A. in 1938. After several years' work at Blyth & Co. he became an owner of Thorsen Tool Co. in Emeryville, California. During World War II he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Lawton was ordered to the Naval Supply Corps school in Boston, where he taught. Mustered out of the navy in Sept. 1945, he returned with his family to live near his parents at the Martinez Ranch, Alhambra Valley, California. Lawton was married twice: (1) To Barbara Anne Reinhardt on Dec. 9, 1939 in Los Angeles. (2) To Anny Hilda "Anneke" de Weerd on 22 Oct. 1977 in Healdsburg, California. In 1950, while managing Thorsen, Lawton joined his long-time friend John Mackay as an equal partner in Mackay Homes, which built hundreds of tract homes in today's Silicon Valley and the area south of Stanford University. In civic affairs he was one of the founders (in 1961 with Dyke and Kate Brown) of The Athenian School at the foot of Mt. Diablo. He became one of the school's first trustees, took the lead in fund-raising, helped develop the school's philosophy, and was instrumental in securing the 110 acres of property as a site for the school. Mackay Homes built all of the initial school buildings then donated them to the school. Starting in 1967 he worked with Barbara Mendenhall to establish the Marin Academy. Both schools are today among California's top private schools. In 1960 he bought a waterfront log cabin on Lake Tahoe near Meeks Bay. The family spent many summers and a few winters there. In 1968 he purchased a large ranch near Healdsburg, California, where he spent most of his later years with Anneke. He was the co-author of two handsome, highly acclaimed books: The Wood Duck and the Mandarin: The Northern Wood Ducks (1996, UC Berkeley Press) and The Lawton and Shurtleff Families: Genealogy and History (2005, 2nd ed.). He is survived by his wife, Anneke; three children by his first wife: William Roy Shurtleff of Lafayette, CA; Jeffrey Hay Shurtleff of San Bruno, CA; and Lynda Shurtleff of Corvallis, Oregon. And by three grandchildren: Justin Avery Cooper Shurtleff of Lake Tahoe, CA; Joseph Aoyagi Shurtleff of San Francisco, CA; Gabriel Hay Reinhardt Shurtleff of San Bruno, CA. He is also survived by his sister, Mrs. G. Willard Miller of Orinda, CA. A private family-only memorial will be held at The Ranch. Interment will be at the Lawton-Shurtleff family plot at Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California.