Hugh E. Macbeth Jr.

June 21, 1919 - September 14, 2019 Hugh E. Macbeth, Jr., passed on September 14, 2019, not quite three months into his one hundred and first year. Predeceased by our beloved mother Lillian C. Macbeth, his wife of 48 years, and our beloved stepmother Maxine Gardner Macbeth, his wife of 25 years, his life was filled with family, professional achievement, and deep friendship. The son of Hugh E. and Edwina M. Macbeth, he was their second child. Their first, Emma, lost her life at the age of five during a holiday picnic in 1915. Hugh was a special child, and he did not disappoint them. They lived in the West Adams/Jefferson district of Los Angeles, an area then central to the Japanese–American community. With no one to play with on weekends, he joined them in Japanese school, studied, shared, and found lifelong friendships. He attended Manual Arts High School, and then UCLA (1941, Phi Beta Kappa). His father, Hugh, Sr., (Harvard Law, 1908) was a force in social justice movements, from the desegregation of Southern California beaches, to prison reform, to the reform of California's foreclosure laws during the Great Depression. Though our father's interests in science and engineering were evident in the cars he raced and the stereos he built, the family expectation was that he would join his father in the practice of law. Residing in International House, he was second in his class at the University of California (Boalt) School of Law, and then joined his father's practice. It was timely, as father and son resisted the infamous 9066 Executive Order imposed on Americans of Japanese descent during the war. He married and raised two sons in a modest home in a different working class and immigrant neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was a golden time for us, a life with dear friends and neighbors, with timeouts for deep-sea fishing and wonderful trips to the Sierra. His thirty years of private practice were a testament to his discipline. But looking for other challenges, he applied for the judicial office of Commissioner of the Superior Court. In short order, he was administering the largest Family Law Court in the County of Los Angeles, supervising a staff of counselors and mediators, and taking the most contentious cases for himself. It was a very good fit. His technical mastery of the law joined his compassion for the ordinary lives it touches. Retired in 1995, he is survived by his cousin and professional colleague Arthur E. Macbeth, his sons Hugh, III, and Douglas, granddaughters Janine and Joycelyn, great-grandchildren Joaquin, Mico and Sierra, and Louise, Steve, Stephanie and Jonathan Alger, Susan Gardner, and Paige Gonzales, our family with Maxine. And in their closing years, he and Maxine were blessed by the professionalism and companionship of their caregivers, Elsa and Rene Tuazon, Luz and Marlon Madraga, Ariel Mallari, Victor Blandon, and others. He was the most powerful person I have ever known.