William Casey

1936 - 2025

With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Casey, known to many as "Bill." He died peacefully on April 11, 2025, with his daughters and their mother by his side. As was his way, he seemed to savor life until the last moment.

Born February 9, 1936, to Florence McDivit Casey and Harry Casey, he spent his formative years in Baltimore. He attended Johns Hopkins University for his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences and then medical school.

As a child, he saw a play that included Al Jolson's "California, here I come" and the song stayed with him. He later mused that it inspired in him a notion to head west, which he did in the summer of 1962, driving his Volkswagen Beetle across the country for an internship at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco. He completed residency in ophthalmology at UCSF, a NIH fellowship at Uppsala University in Sweden, and a fellowship at Yale. He did research in Uganda and in Jerusalem, where he was the director of the Eye Bank at St. John Ophthalmic Hospital. In 1969, he opened a private practice in San Francisco and in 1991 joined Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo and Napa. He held a clinical faculty position at the UCSF Department of Ophthalmology from 1969 until retirement.

He and his then-wife Alexandra started St. Clement Winery after falling in love with the historic property and its Victorian home. This is where they raised their daughters and were part of the wine industry during a period in the Napa Valley that they thought of as its heyday, when most wineries were operated by families and the vintners were a close-knit community.

Not one to take no for an answer, he was steadfast when he wanted something badly enough. A few years ago, he took his street-legal golf cart (with a top speed of 25mph), south on Highway 29, to complete an errand in Napa. When his daughters were contacted by a concerned citizen in Napa, his return trip was thwarted.

He was an avid gardener with a unique tenderness for plants, a lover and collector of art. He had a fascination with etymology, and was always keen to interrupt your sentence to tell you the Latin or Greek root of a word you'd used. He was a prolific watercolor painter and a lover of good food and wine. Dining at local restaurants was one of his greatest joys, as were big, boisterous family dinners.

He was preceded in death by his parents and his adored brother Harry. He leaves behind his daughters Gillian Casey and Brooke Casey; four grandchildren: Anais, Anakarla, Elsa and Harriet; son-in-law Scott Casey; his nephews and niece; former wives Alexandra Haslip, Rachel Laufer, Jane Casey, and Alexandra's husband Jim Haslip.

He spent his recent years living at Silverado Orchards Retirement Community in St. Helena. We are so grateful for the tremendous kindness of the owners, staff, and residents there. William Casey