Jeremiah Hallisey

1939 - 2021

Jeremiah Joseph Hallisey

Jeremiah Joseph Hallisey died at home March 6, of cancer. Born in 1939 in New Hampshire to Corinne Virginia Desautels and Dr. Dennis Leo Hallisey, Jeremiah attended Dartmouth College followed by Law School at Yale University. After graduation, Jeremiah passed the bar and then fulfilled his ROTC duty with a post in Army Intelligence in Germany, where he remained and took courses at the Goethe Institute and traveled extensively in Europe. Changed by this enlightening, life-altering experience, and having learned so much about European countries, their wine and food and history, he returned to the United States to California and Stanford University to get a PhD in American Literature. He taught at Mills College for several years, became Assistant Dean there, and then for a few years returned to the East Coast to become Academic Dean at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. He and his wife, Alison Warriner—whom he met at Mills—missed California too much to stay on the East Coast, so they settled back into Oakland where Jeremiah became Dean of Studies at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda and Pleasant Hill.

A man of many interests, Jeremiah was especially delighted by music, and supported the San Francisco Symphony for decades. He read widely, starting each day with the NY Times, and branching out into many genres over the course of the day. He once threatened to have Mahler's entire Fifth symphony played and Wallace Stevens's entire Sunday Morning read at his memorial service (not happening). He followed politics avidly. His friends say he was a great conversationalist, wide-ranging, thoughtful and provocative in a good way. They remember his keen wit and his palpable kindness. He also played tennis (with joy) and golf (with frustration), and especially enjoyed a month each year back at the family cottage in Amagansett, NY. Most of all, though, he loved the Bay Area and felt lucky to have discovered it early in his life. He took advantage of its many cultural opportunities, appreciated its diversity, admired its educational institutions and reveled in its climate. Nothing pleased him more than to walk the neighborhood, watch the sunsets, engage with friends, and eat and drink the local bounty.

Jeremiah is survived by his wife, Alison Warriner, who declares him the best conceivable husband, his beloved stepdaughter, Dawn Warriner, his sister, Maryjane Marderosian and Aram Marderosian, predeceased brother Dennis Leo Hallisey and Judith Wisowaty Hallisey, nieces Corinne and Jessica and Laura, nephews Paul and Matthew, and several grandnieces and grandnephews. Despite Covid-19, Paul and Matthew were able to visit him in the last weeks of his life, and Matthew, Dawn and Alison were by his side at the end. His was a life well lived.

Donations welcome to Arts for Oakland Kids, 3871 Piedmont Avenue #11, Oakland, CA 94611 or to the San Francisco Symphony, 201 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102.