Mike Silva

1930 - 2022

Mike Silva
June 14, 1930 - June 28, 2022
Garden City, Idaho - Our badass dad, Mike Silva, died June 28th, two weeks past his 92nd birthday. His wild and chaotic childhood began the day he was born Michael Bernard Smith on June 14, 1930. His Irish mother died when he was two, leaving him in the care of a peripatetic musician father and fancy stepmother who thought Mario Silva a better name for an entertainer, and Michel Silva for his young son. Dad was carted around the country or ensconced in the Jewish and Catholic homes of various relatives when Mario was on tour. He ended up in Los Angeles at age 11 at the home of a woman he'd never met, Lucille (briefly married to Mario), who became his beloved mom, adopting him at age 16. Lucille helped shape his love of learning and his abhorrence for racism and injustice. After graduating from Hollywood High, Dad went to Washington University in St. Louis, where Julius Klyman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch became a cherished mentor and father figure. A friend quipped that Dad's birth certificate should read: To Whom It May Concern.
Dad cut his teeth as a reporter at the Post-Dispatch. He thought his career was over before it started when he wrote a piece about pigeons, only to be told by his editor that he'd misspelled "pidgeon" 27 times. He survived it, soon becoming a stringer, then reporter for LIFE Magazine. He had a remarkable career that included eight years at LIFE, stints at Playboy, ChicagoLand Magazine, Careers Today, Encyclopedia Britannica, the AMA, Heublein, Boise-Cascade, his own company, Creative Arts, and the place he loved most and felt the most appreciated â€" Healthwise, here in Boise â€" from which he retired at 90.
He persuaded the beautiful Beverly Snell to marry him in 1954, and for 24 years they raised five kids through seven moves across the country. His career kept him on the road; still, he was the sun in our small galaxy, a force of nature. He could command a room, a dinner table, a party (just sitting down at his piano, people gathered around him to sing). He stood on our lawn most Saturdays yelling at cars to slow down for the kids' sake. He corrected our grammar, remanded us to the dictionary daily, taught us to speak our opinions with confidence and demand to be heard. He forbade us from playing in houses where there were guns. He told us we could be anything we wanted, that organized religion was a ruse, that our right to vote was sacred. Conversation around the dinner table, we also learned, is sometimes a blood sport. (His quick wit and expansive sense of humor helped.) Above all, he wanted us to be devoted to the truth, and to have compassion for those less fortunate.
This was a man who resigned from his fraternity in the late '40s when they refused to pledge a Filipino student; who opted out of a planned neighborhood bomb shelter in the early '60s when the group signaled it wouldn't shelter black people; who let his kids wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam war; who played a high-stakes game of cribbage with Bev to determine who would represent our family at the 1971 Washington DC "Out Now" march against the war (Mom won). He was steadfastly committed to his friendship with Mom after their divorce, not just for our benefit, but because he loved and respected her. He could hold a grudge, but was forgiving in stunning ways. Despite his myriad flaws, he had a heart as big as the world.
His passion and fierce intelligence attracted two more remarkable women. Dad and Kathleen (Hamilton) were married for 10 years, and then he met his match in the great Rosemarie Casper, whom he adored and was devastated to lose after 26 years in 2017. They walked arm-in-arm through business ventures and tennis and moves and illnesses, and the love of their two amazing labs, Buddy and Bumper, who brought them so much joy.
Dad had a fight in him for righting wrongs, which led him to stints as an ACHD Commissioner and a Boise City Council member. He supported the PTAs of our schools (even writing and directing fundraising musicals) and the HOAs of his communities, with an eye toward quality of life for all. He was active in the Boise theater community, starring in and directing Boise Music Week and Boise Little Theater productions. The man could sing. He was particularly proud of directing a reading of The Exonerated at BCT, another fundraiser to right wrongs.
A lifelong learner, Dad started a book club at age 90 with family friend Josie Fretwell. Together they read sweeping histories of human life, racism, the environment, dark books about our future. An inveterate optimist, Dad finally put his head down one day and said, "What are we going to do?" But he never stopped believing in the doing, nor in our responsibility to evolve. A committed atheist, Dad surprised us when he said that reading Cloud Cuckoo Land (the last novel he read) was "like lying in a field of soft earth, surrounded by colorful bushes and a warm, gentle breeze wafting over what may be your soul."
He is survived by his five children: Kim Silva (Mike Davidson); Stacey Silva St. Amand; Samantha Silva (David Nevin); Peter Silva; Mark Silva (Carmen Pedraza) and nine grandchildren: Alex Davidson; Nashua and Devon St. Amand; Atticus, Phoebe and Olive Hoffman; Samantha Silva; and Andrew and Catalina Silva. He is also survived by his brother- and sister-in-law, Vince and Ellie Casper, with whom he remained close.
In his last days he told us that he'd had to invent a new field of logic to understand what was happening to him, and was frustrated not to stay around to write a book about it. He also said he wished he could apologize to everyone he'd ever played tennis with.
Dad, evolving, to the very end.