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Hundreds Remember Activist Jean Siri, Pioneering East Bay Environmentalist

Posted on: Saturday, 11 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Alan Lopez, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

Feb. 11--The release of several dozen orange and black monarch butterflies at a Point Richmond park concluded a two-hour tribute to pioneering environmentalist and activist Jean Siri on Friday.

The memorial event held in a white tent under a blue sky drew more than 350 people, many of whom remembered Siri as an activist and community leader committed to a number of environmental and social justice causes. The event was held at the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park.

A number of elected officials, including Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia and several members of the Richmond City Council also paid tribute.

"She was a driving force in the (East Bay Regional) Park District and a driving force in the community too. ... " park district general manager Pat O'Brien said. "She was a warrior in so many different areas, and touched so many people."

Siri died of a heart attack in her car in front of her San Pablo home on Jan. 20 at age 85. She was a member of the park district board from 1992 until her death, and served on the El Cerrito City Council in the 1980s and early 1990s, including two years as mayor.

Dubbed one of the "Wild Women of West County" in the early 1980s, Siri also advocated on behalf of the homeless and the poor.

With her husband, William Siri, Jean Siri helped found the Citizens for East Shore Parks, said Robert Cheasty, the president of that group and a former Albany mayor.

"She was an inspiration to all of us," Cheasty said.

Siri's activism prompted tributes from about two dozen speakers representing a number of organizations, including the National Audubon Society, Cal Dog, the Urban Creeks Council, the Native Plant Society and the Stege Sanitary District.

In addition to her activism, many also recalled Siri as a feisty woman who spoke her mind.

Longtime friend Virginia Mason recalled Siri crying at sad movies, picking up trash on Moeser Lane in El Cerrito and giving away her possessions after selling her El Cerrito home.

"I've never seen anyone so unattached to anything material," Mason said.

At times fighting back tears, Richmond homeless advocate Susan Prather recalled being pulled under Siri's wing at age 22 and then working with her and Fancheon Christner as one of the "wild women" in the early 1980s.

But according to Prather and others, Siri believed her greatest accomplishment was her involvement in the grass-roots effort to establish the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline in North Richmond in the early 1970s.

Born March 11, 1920, in Lakota, N.D., Siri graduated from Jamestown College with a degree in biology in 1942. She spent two years in the Navy, and on Dec. 3, 1947, married William Siri, a nuclear physicist who became a famed mountaineer and president of the Sierra Club.

The couple raised two daughters, Lynn Kimsey and Ann Siri, in El Cerrito. The two women helped release the butterflies at the end of the event.

The service began with a short video retrospective with photos and interview clips that captured Siri's mischievous spark as well as her philosophy.

"The young people I think have to get involved in things outside themselves," Siri said. "It's important to take an interest in the community and things worth doing. Volunteer."

Rep. Miller said it will be tough to fill Siri's shoes.

"The real challenge is who's going to step up and fill that void," Miller said. "It's not going to be one person, that's for damn sure."

Reach Alan Lopez at 510-243-3578 or e-mail alopez1@cctimes.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.

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Source: Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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