John William Wuorenmaa

- Kurt Vonnegut
John William Wuorenmaa passed away on January 11, 2024, surrounded by his family and close friends at his home in San Francisco, California. He was diagnosed 11 months earlier with a glioblastoma. John was nothing if not reliable, responsible, and timely and his navigation of his terminal illness would be no different. He worked through a craniotomy, two rounds of radiation and ongoing chemotherapy up until his winter break and took his last breath two days after going on medical leave. He was 48 years old.
John was born November 21, 1975, just minutes before his fraternal twin brother Jesse Benjamin Wuorenmaa. John learned his self-sufficiency and loyalty from his Mom and Dad, Sharon and Richard Wuorenmaa. Together for over 50 years, they raised four children in Louisville, Kentucky. In addition to their full-time work and childrearing; they maintained over 9 acres of land, growing vegetables and roses, raising horses, and completing various projects around the house. John was a rule follower from the start, disliked attention, and never wanted to cause drama or disruption. As a kid attempting to use a chain and hook from the tractor as a grappling hook to climb a tree; he fell and injured his right arm. Days passed and his Mom realized he was using his left arm to eat dinner and color. When she asked him about it he told her everything was fine although he winced when she touched his arm. After taking him to the ER they informed her that his arm was indeed broken.
John enjoyed being in community. As a high school student at DuPont Manual, he was very popular, excelling in academics and captain of his football team. Unlike many kids that age, he found it easy to be himself and to move between different groups of people. It was during this time that he started his first job at Bob Morgan Woodworking Supplies where he grew his love of woodworking, power tools, and building things with his hands. He had a talent for understanding the way things worked. He repaired and maintained his own Toyota Corolla and helped his childhood best friend Stephen Webb refurbish a VW Golf. They learned simply by jumping in and doing the work as this was well before the days of Google and YouTube.
John moved to the Bay Area in 1994. He started his coursework at Berkeley but left after a year. His reflection on that time was that he felt alone and isolated. He spent the remainder of his life building the relational connections he so deeply desired. He moved into a Victorian flat in the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco where he was always hosting a party, barbecue, karaoke, or game night, going out to play pool, or even dancing–yes John used to dance! There was a revolving door of roommates, squatters, and visitors at the house and he enjoyed being in their company, sitting out on the deck talking until the sun rose. Steadfastness and rent control kept him living in the same apartment for the remainder of his life.
John was a natural problem solver and couldn't find a problem that he could walk away from. He worked at UC Berkeley as a Systems Administrator for the Berkeley Language Center for 28 years. You could often find him there even on the weekends tearing out old flooring, building computers from scratch to save the department a few hundred dollars, or sleeping in his cramped and messy office to get a computer lab in working order before students started the semester. He was happiest when he was being of service to others and lending a helpful hand. It was in offering to help his co-worker, Asija, fit her friend's dining room table into a hatchback that he fell for her– there was nowhere else for her to sit but on his lap.
John and Asija dated for more than nine years before they got married in 2010. In their time together they traveled all over the world taking advantage of their educational career calendars and long summer breaks. They would pick destinations based on how cheap the tickets cost. John was always the planner, figuring out ways to save a few dollars here and there; like leasing a brand new car through a Peugeot dealership in France and driving it all over Europe or staying in a $14 a-night guesthouse in Istanbul where mice ate their snacks and John spent the rest of the day unsuccessfully trying to convince Asija to stay because they had already paid for the second night.
After the sudden loss of his twin brother, Jesse in March of 2013, it felt kismet when John and Asija found that they were expecting twin boys. Adam Jefferson Wuorenmaa and Ryan Benjamin Wuorenmaa were born on February 19, 2014. While Asija was happy to get back to work teaching, John reveled in his paternity leave. He would create spreadsheets to track their growth, even purchasing his own infant scale to make sure they were getting enough breast milk. He doted on his boys, rarely told them no, and enjoyed watching them grow and learn. He often said the boys' fighting and bickering brought memories of his brother Jesse back into focus. He had so much that he still wanted to teach them but his love and compassion shine so brightly through Adam and Ryan.
When the boys started public school in San Francisco John created a Facebook profile, Tim Tahoe, where he would anonymously answer parent questions and dig through San Francisco Unified board meeting documents and webpages to compile school and student data reports, district and state school budget spending, and slide show presentations. He was so good at researching and compiling information that many parents assumed that Tim Tahoe was an anonymous school board member or SFUSD employee. During the Covid-19 pandemic, John found solace in keeping his family safe. He was one of the first people in the neighborhood to wear a mask and stock up on personal protective equipment before Dr. Fauci warned us all to follow suit. He kept track of San Francisco Covid numbers on his personal spreadsheets and bored Asija, and anyone else that would listen, with his warnings of Covid surges in the city.
If John had ten dollars then you had fifteen. If he had the skills or the tools to fix an issue then you could consider it done and if he didn't then he was going to research, learn, or buy what it was that you needed. He moved throughout his life giving in full abundance and he was all the richer for the many lives that he impacted.
John was preceded in death by his twin brother Jesse Benjamin Wuorenmaa. He has left a gaping hole in the hearts of his wife Asija (nee Chappel), his beloved twin boys Adam and Ryan, his father Richard, his mother Sharon, his sisters Kristin Holland (Rick Sachar) and sister Leslie Wuorenmaa, in addition to his in-laws and the many, many close friends that he adopted as family along the way.
In true John fashion, he requested that a funeral not be held in his honor. We are currently planning a Memorial Luncheon for late March at UC Berkeley. If you are so moved, in lieu of flowers you may contribute directly to Ryan and Adam's scholarship funds (529 accounts).