[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 201 (Thursday, December 20, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1698-E1699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF BILL NEWSOM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 19, 2018

  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I include the following obituary from the 
San Francisco Chronicle honoring Bill Newsom:

       Justice William A. (``Bill'') Newsom, paterfamilias of a 
     pioneering San Francisco family and a revered figure to his 
     children, grandchildren and expansive clan, ardent defender 
     of the environment, longtime San Francisco civic leader and 
     retired Justice of the California Court of Appeal, died on 
     December 12 from complications of old age.
       Bill was a brilliant man of letters and linguistic genius 
     who could bend the English language to his will like few 
     others. Avuncular and sweet-natured, possessed of a wry and 
     irreverent wit, fluent in French and Italian, a master of 
     allusion and superb with impressions and accents, he was 
     unexcelled as a raconteur and bard. He was devoted to an 
     astounding variety of literary and intellectual pursuits, 
     peripatetic in his extensive travels, and indefatigable in 
     his commitments to civic and charitable endeavors, 
     particularly to conservation and environmental causes. A 
     noted bibliophile and oenophile, he frequently combined those 
     loves with a third, his great love of music, particularly 
     opera. Bill liked his poets Irish, but his food Italian. He 
     possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of natural history and 
     natural science and loved adventuring in the out of doors 
     with family and friends locally in California, on the 
     Colorado River through he Grand Canyon, in Alaska, Africa and 
     beyond. He was an irrepressible patron of lost causes who 
     almost invariably took up on behalf of the underdog and the 
     ``little guy.'' His empathy and compassion were perpetually 
     on display; it would be foolhardy to try to catalogue his 
     countless initiatives on behalf of the unfortunate, the 
     downtrodden and the wronged, much less his constant 
     individual acts of kindness. It is perhaps best simply to 
     observe that never did someone come to him for help and leave 
     without it.
       A wonderful father to his own children and ``Papapapap'' to 
     his six grandchildren, Bill was also a superb builder and 
     cultivator of family. Be it in Squaw Valley (a central 
     gathering-place for the extended Newsom clan since the 1960 
     Winter Olympics), at the Monte Vista Inn or his treasured 
     mountain retreat in Dutch Flat, or on any of innumerable 
     family trips, he was never happier than when surrounded by 
     family in conviviality, holding court with a fire roaring, 
     recounting adventures and tales, offering unforgettable 
     impersonations, describing the San Francisco of his (and his 
     father's) youth, quoting Chesterton and Belloc, Yeats and 
     Heaney. Bill adored children and they in turn were drawn to 
     him as to the Pied Piper. He related to them in the most 
     authentic and endearing way, not speaking at them but with 
     them, neither at his level nor theirs, but in some kind of 
     magical blarney in between that riveted them, made them 
     laugh, and yet taught them something at every turn. They left 
     his company--usually holding an armful of books, and some 
     money--knowing he was their ally, including especially in 
     whatever mischief they might be planning with his consent, or 
     perhaps even his connivance. (Bill loved to tweak the 
     establishment, even if that meant the parents of his co-
     conspirators!).
       A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Bill was born into a 
     large Irish Catholic brood in Depression-era San Francisco on 
     February 15, 1934 and raised on Jefferson St. at Baker, in 
     the shadow of the Palace of Fine Arts. He was the second and 
     last surviving of six children (Carole A. Onorato, Belinda B. 
     (``Barbara'') Newsom, Brennan J. Newsom, Sharon C. Mohun, 
     Patrick J. Newsom) born to William A. Newsom, Jr. and 
     Christine Newsom. Bill's parents were Mission District Irish. 
     His father, William A. Newsom, Jr., (b. 1902) was a developer 
     and civic leader who survived the 1906 earthquake and was 
     closely associated with the late Gov. Edmund G. (``Pat'') 
     Brown. Bill's paternal grandfather, also William A. Newsom, 
     born in San Francisco in 1865, was a contractor and early 
     city father who later became an associate of A.P. Giannini 
     and opened the first branch office of the Bank of America at 
     29th and Mission Streets in San Francisco. His maternal 
     grandfather (b. 1872) was a longshoreman on the San Francisco 
     waterfront who had made his way from Ireland to San Francisco 
     in the 1880s.
       Bill was privileged to have a superb education, first under 
     the tutelage of the good Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and 
     the French Marists (most of sturdy Breton stock) at Ecole 
     Notre Dame des Victoires, then under the Jesuits at St. 
     Ignatius High School, from which he was graduated in 1951. It 
     was at SI that Bill first encountered many of his boon 
     companions, including Lloyd Fabbri, Lou Felder, Gordon Getty, 
     Paul Getty, Jim Halligan, Chris Malarkey, John Mallen and 
     many more. Bill received his undergraduate degree in French 
     Literature from the University of San Francisco in 1955; a 
     Masters in English Literature from Stanford in 1961; and his 
     law degree from Stanford in 1960.
       Bill married the former Tessa Menzies in 1966. They were 
     blessed with the birth of a son, Gavin, in 1967 and a 
     daughter, Hilary, in 1968. While Bill and Tessa were divorced 
     in 1973, they maintained a close, familial relationship for 
     the rest of their lives.
       In his professional life, Bill was a Commissioner of the 
     San Francisco Superior Court following law school before 
     entering private practice as an attorney, first with the 
     Lillick firm in San Francisco (1963-1965), then as an 
     associate of the celebrated San Francisco trial attorney, 
     James Martin Macinnis (1965-1966), and finally opening his 
     own private law practice in Tahoe City, CA (1967-1975). He 
     also served as an attorney for Getty Oil Italiana (based in 
     Rome) in the late 1960s. Bill was appointed by Gov. Jerry 
     Brown first to the Placer County Superior Court in 1975, and 
     subsequently to the California Court of Appeals (First 
     Appellate District) in March 1978. He retired from the Court 
     of Appeal in 1995.
       Throughout his adult life, Bill served as a legal and 
     business advisor to his great childhood friends, Gordon P. 
     Getty and J. Paul (``Paul'') Getty, Jr., and later to many 
     other members of the Getty family. Among other formal roles, 
     he served as Trustee of the Ronald Family Getty Trust from 
     1988 to 2011; as Trust Administrator for the Gordon Getty 
     Family Trust from 1994 to 2009; and as a Director and 
     President of the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation from 2011 
     until his passing. However, his most valuable service was in 
     his informal capacity as a trusted confidant and, first and 
     foremost, a friend. Bill played an important role in the 
     negotiations for the release of Paul Getty's son, J. Paul 
     Getty III, following his kidnapping in 1973.
       At one time he considered a career in politics, but Bill 
     lost his first race for the State Senate in 1968. (When asked 
     why he lost, his answer was usually: ``Because I ran against 
     the unbeatable Milton Marks.'') Despite a later movement to 
     draft him as a mayoral candidate in the early 1980s, Bill had 
     come to see himself in roles outside politics.

[[Page E1699]]

       Bill's civic and charitable commitments were substantial. 
     He served on the Board of Regents of the University of Santa 
     Clara; the Board of Directors of the International Bioethics 
     Institute, and on the boards of numerous environmental 
     organizations including Earthjustice (San Francisco), 
     Environmental Defense Fund (New York and San Francisco), 
     Friends of the River (Sacramento), Sierra Watch (Nevada City) 
     and the Mountain Lion Foundation (Sacramento). A visionary 
     conservationist from an early age, he was an avid supporter 
     of dozens of individuals and organizations working to protect 
     our public resources--clean air, clean water, biodiversity, 
     wildlife and wild places, especially our forests, rivers, and 
     oceans.
       Bill was endowed with great decency and humanity; indeed, 
     these were his defining traits. He took the Golden Rule 
     literally, regarding indignities to others as indignities to 
     himself. A close friend from Bill's youth used to say of him 
     that ``the milk of human kindness flows by the quart in every 
     vein.''
       Sometimes we lose someone whose passing makes it seem like 
     an entire era is washed away. Bill was a proto-San Franciscan 
     who often spoke of a city we sometimes now see only through a 
     gauzy lens, where civic virtue, pride and neighborliness 
     predominated; boasting a vibrant waterfront and teeming with 
     middle class families; led by citizens who, Republican or 
     Democrat, shared many core values; and having colorful 
     characters at every turn. He was certain that he lived in the 
     most magical place possible and, as was said of one of Bill's 
     literary heroes, Belloc, ``No man of his time fought so hard 
     for the good things.''
       He is survived by his beloved children of whom he was so 
     proud, governor-elect Gavin Christopher Newsom and his wife 
     Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and Hilary Callan Newsom and her 
     husband, Geoff Callan; his grandchildren, Talitha and Siena 
     Callan and Montana, Hunter, Brooklynn and Dutch Newsom; his 
     sisters-in-law, Cindy Asner, Cathy Newsom Goodman, Franza 
     Newsom and Anne Scherer; his brother-in-law, Ronald V. 
     Pelosi; a passel of nieces and nephews, grand-nieces and 
     grand-nephews in the Mohun, Fink, Newsom, Onorato, Pelosi and 
     Scherer families; many beloved cousins and relations; and his 
     legion of dear friends, including Gordon and Ann Getty and 
     other, lifelong companions such as Jim Halligan and John 
     Mallen; his longtime personal assistant, Lisa Belforte; and 
     so many others. In addition to his siblings, Bill was 
     predeceased by his former wife, Tessa Newsom.
       Private services and burial to be held near Bill's longtime 
     home in the community of Dutch Flat, CA. In lieu of flowers, 
     the family suggests donations to the Justice William Newsom 
     Fund at the San Francisco Foundation 
     (www.justicewilliamnewsomfund.org), which will be used to 
     carry on Bill's legacy of environmental stewardship for 
     generations to come, or to your favorite charity.
       ``When You to Acheron's Ugly Water Come . . .
       Then go before them like a royal ghost
       And tread like Egypt or like Carthage crowned;
       Because in your Mortality the most
       Of all we may inherit has been found--
       Children for memory: the Faith for pride.
       Good land to leave: and young Love satisfied''
       Requiescat in pace.

                          ____________________