People

Mary Ellen Kindt McKenzie (Ellen), died peacefully in her sleep on Sunday, January 24, 2021, age 92, while in hospice in Chico, CA.

Ellen was born on June 24, 1928 in Kenosha Wisconsin. She is predeceased by her parents, George Marcus (Mark) Kindt and Nettie Titania (Tanie) Hill Kindt, brother, Orin Hill Kindt, sister, Joann Kindt, and husband, Arthur Vincent McKenzie.

Ellen is survived by children, Alison (Tim) Mahoney, Robert Douglas (Carlene) McKenzie, and James Lawrence (Clara) McKenzie, four grandchildren, Geneva (Chaz Prentice) McKenzie, Dora (Herman) Ward, Jane Clare McKenzie, and Ian James McKenzie, and two great grandchildren, Theo Michael Leary, and Eleanor Ward.

Ellen took piano lessons from an early age. She attended the Chicago Musical College during the late 1940s where she studied with Rudolph Ganz. She married Art McKenzie in 1950 in Chicago. In 1952 the couple moved to Palo Alto, CA, then to Los Altos in 1960.

Captain Edward Donald Clark, age 86, passed peacefully in his Los Altos, California home on August, 22, 2020. He was proceeded to his heavenly estate by his devoted wife, Barbara Jean DuBois, and his parents, Edward Clark and Mary Boshek. With fondness, Edward, recalled his experiences during the war years when he and his Uncle Andrew Boshek listened to the radio from the attic late at night hoping to catch the communications from pilots as they traveled the skies near his home in Scranton PA. It was these and other experiences shared about his Uncle Albert Boshek, one of the first great aviators in American history, that led Edward to pursue a career in aviation, much to his mother’s disliking. Traveling a great distance by foot, Edward worked many hours at a local ice cream soda shop the modest earnings from, along with the proceeds from sales at the hobby shop he ran out of his parent’s home, were promptly invested in flying lessons.

James F. (Jim) O’Brien, a 59 year resident of Los Altos, passed away on 02/15/2021. He was born and raised in Queens, NYC.

Jim was preceded in death by siblings Joan C, John T, and Jeanne M, as well as daughter Kathleen S.  He is survived by Sharon E, his blue-eyed bride of 60 years, plus sons Kevin J and Daniel C.

An Army veteran, Jim first served in the European Army of Occupation during 1945-47, and from 1951-53 during the Korean War.

Interspersed with his military services, Jim earned an Economics degree from Fordham University and an MBA from NYU. He was also a graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Executive Program. 

After 11 years in New England, Jim transferred to Sylvania Electric Products in Mountain View, CA. He later co-founded ESL Inc. where he served as CFO until the company was acquired by TRW.

Born on December 22, 1933; died on January 9, 2021

Kathryn, aka Kay, attended Grant Grammar School and Lowell High School in San Francisco.

She attended the University of California in Berkeley, getting a BA in Education, and one lecture in Art History that later led to over 35 years of Art Docent volunteer activities, which were the enjoyable foci of most of her adult life.

She taught 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd grades in Berkeley, San Francisco and Long Island, New York. She didn’t like teaching and returned to Berkeley. And through common friends met Roland Payne, who had recently come back from the East Coast and was teaching mathematics in the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. Six months later she married LTjg Payne in the Navy Chapel on Treasure Island and they moved to Monterey. They started a family.