[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO FRED FARR

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                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 12, 1997

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, a few days ago our colleague Sam Farr of 
California experienced the loss of his father, former State Senator 
Fred Farr, who passed away at the age of 86. Fred Farr was widely 
revered as an effective, compassionate leader who fought to improve the 
lives of Californians from all walks of life through his work in the 
State Legislature. Fred Farr's greatness emanated from his goodness and 
he will be sorely missed by those who knew him and benefited from his 
efforts.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of 
Fred Farr, and extending our deepest condolences to his son and all his 
family, and request that the article from the San Jose Mercury News be 
included in the Congressional Record.
  At this time, I recall the poet's words . . . ``and so he passed on 
and all the trumpets sounded on the other side.''

              [From San Jose Mercury News, June 11, 1997]

           Fred Farr Was Great Man and Worthy Representative

                          (By Lee Quarnstrom)

       When my friend John Riley heard that former state Sen. Fred 
     Farr had died Tuesday at the age of 86, he said, ``Well, he 
     won't be going to a better place, because Monterey is already 
     paradise.''
       John, who was once Fred Farr's neighbor in Carmel, wasn't 
     being facetious. He was, in fact, expressing in his own way 
     his admiration for the man who represented the Monterey Bay 
     region in the California Senate and whose son, Sam, now 
     represents us in the Congress.
       Let me get this on the record right now: Fred Farr was a 
     great man.
       For a tiny portion of this state, the Monterey Bay area has 
     sent some remarkable people to the capitals of California and 
     the United States. Fred Farr was among the best of them.
       My first encounter with him was during a special election 
     more than a quarter century ago. I was a reporter for the 
     Watsonville Register Pajaronian, and Farr, who had been 
     redistricted out of the state Senate, was seeking an Assembly 
     seat that had opened up because the incumbent had died in a 
     traffic accident.
       As we motored along Highway I somewhere north of 
     Castroville, where he was scheduled to give a stump speech 
     and shake the voters' hands, Farr looked out across a field 
     of row crops and softly told me, ``There's what I'm proudest 
     of, of all the things I did in the Legislature.''
       I asked him what he meant. He explained that he had written 
     the legislation that mandates that sufficient number of 
     portable toilets must be put in the fields when the farmhands 
     who plant and tend and harvest the crops are working.
       Before his bill, farm workers had to squat between rows of 
     lettuce or cauliflower--or whatever--when nature called. His 
     bill, he proudly told me, give those men and women who pick 
     our food ``some privacy and dignity when they have to relieve 
     themselves.''
       ``What a great man!'' I said to myself. And I meant it.
       Fred Farr did many things for many people. He saved the 
     Coast Highway through Big Sur when the state Department of 
     Transportation wanted to turn Highway I into a multilane 
     freeway--a deed for which each of us should be eternally 
     grateful.
       He helped preserve the stone tower and home of the late and 
     great Carmel poet, Robinson Jeffers. He was a founder of the 
     Tor House Foundation, which helped raise funds so that 
     Jeffers' heirs would not have to sell the house when they 
     needed cash to live on. He was a stalwart liberal during the 
     darkness of the McCarthy era and took stands that caused some 
     Americans to be labeled as Communists.
       The last time I saw Farr was when he invited me to lunch in 
     Carmel a few years ago. After our meal he walked me to my 
     car, where I discovered I had a flat tire. He drove me to his 
     gas station and politely asked the mechanic whether he could 
     solve my problem expeditiously. He was not demanding service 
     as a former bigwig, he asked for the mechanic's help simply 
     as the gentleman that he was.
       His son Sam told me Tuesday that as his father lay dying, 
     people came to his hospital room not only to pay tribute to 
     Fred Farr, but to touch him, the way people touch those who 
     possess great good souls or notable celebrity.
       If there is place where good souls go after the body dies, 
     it will no doubt be more beautiful and probably less crowded 
     that the Monterey Peninsula. If that place exists, Fred Farr 
     will grace it no less than he graced this region he called 
     home and where he died.

     

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