In Memoriam

2025

Sir Robert (Jack) Calloway October 3, 1930 - January 7, 2025.

Jack and his wife Kay moved to Walnut Creek in 1972. They have three children, Mary Kay, Terri, and Tom, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.

Jack served as president of the Administrative Management Society from 1990 to 1991, president of the Walnut Creek Men’s Golf Club in 2000, and was elected as Big Sir in 1999. He is an honorary life member of Branch 146.

Jack was a lifetime golfer until health issues required him to give up the game in 2012. He also enjoyed genealogy as well as gardening with a special interest in butterfly gardening.

2024

Sir Tom Boltz June 27, 1937 - December 4, 2024.

Sir Robert (Bob) Burley May 19, 1927 - July 16, 2024.

Bob Burley was born on May 19, 1927 in a farm house east of Lancaster, California with the aid of a midwife. A country doctor came by a day or two later to collect his $5 and fill out a birth certificate. Bob stayed in the Antelope Valley for the next eighteen years, attending a four room grade school with four very good teachers through eighth grade and then taking long bus rides to attend a high school that was eleven miles away and covered a 50 square mile radius.

The depression was in full swing and so there were no luxuries. But his family was far better off than those in other parts of the country and he and his siblings grew up as a happy lot. There are many games that can be played with little or no equipment.

Bob’s high school advisor predicted that he would fail but, instead, he graduated with honors and was accepted at Occidental College. However, his college career was immediately cut short by the draft. He was sent to Camp Roberts for infantry training and was about to set sail for fighting in Japan when the atomic bomb led to the Japanese surrender. Instead, he was sent to Korea as part of the occupation army.

After about a year in Korea, Bob was discharged and returned to Occidental College. He earned his bachelor’s degree there and then went on to dental school at the University of Southern California.

In 1954, Bob took his dental board exams and married Sally Reynolds. They moved to Walnut Creek where Bob opened a dental practice and he never left. When Bob and Sally arrived, they knew no one and so they joined everything to become part of the community. Somehow he ended up being a member of various boards and going through the chairs. This turned out to be rewarding in many ways.

Bob and Sally had three children, Brian, Steve, and Cheryl. They all live in the Bay Area and each has two children---four granddaughters and two grandsons.

Sir William (Bill) Hartman April 29, 1937 - June 25, 2024.

Bill Hartman was born in Sacramento in 1937 and was raised in Berkeley. He watched the town transition from a conservative community to the most liberal in the country.

Bill graduated from Berkeley High in 1955 and then entered Stanford, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1959. He then joined the Army, serving in both the infantry and in intelligence. During that tour, he supplemented the Secret Service at the Kennedy inaugural in 1960. After his discharge from the Army in 1962, he enrolled at Boalt Hall (now the University of California Law School) and earned a J.D. degree in 1964.

Bill began his legal career as a deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County in 1965. In 1968, he joined a law firm in San Francisco where he rose to partner. In 1985, he started his own law firm in Walnut Creek with several other attorneys and retired from the firm in 2002.

Bill lived in Walnut Creek. His wife Pat died in 2013 after 49 years of marriage. Bill has three children and seven grandchildren, all of whom live in the Bay Area.

Bill enjoyed world affairs, travel, sports, tennis, classical music, spending time with his grandchildren, cooking, and literature.

Sir Robert (Bob) White August 25, 1933 - May 28, 2024.

Bob White was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1933. His father worked for Western Electric doing power plant installations in the upper Midwest, which necessitated family moves every four to eight weeks or so. The family finally settled in St. Louis County, Missouri, where he and his younger sister were raised from kindergarten through high school.

After high school graduation in 1951, he joined the US Navy and did six months’ training in anti-submarine warfare. From there, he was assigned to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Two at Ream Field on the Mexican border near San Ysidro, California. He left the service in 1956 as a sonarman first class.

Bob used the GI Bill to go to Park College in Parkville, Missouri, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in US history. He then received a Woodrow Wilson scholarship to attend Stanford University. After a year at Stanford, he received a fellowship to attend San Francisco Theological Seminary. In the summer after his first year at the seminary, he served at a church in the tiny town of Bickleton, Washington. That is where he and his young family became fully immersed in a much different kind of life---cattle ranching and wheat farming.

By far one of the most interesting experiences of his life occurred during his last year in the seminary in March 1965. He and other seminary students accepted a request from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to come to Selma, Alabama to participate in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. They took a two day bus trip to Brown Memorial Chapel in Selma where they bedded down on and under the church pews. Among other assigned chores, they helped put up an enormous circus tent for the marchers to sleep in. They then got to march to Montgomery and hear the speeches. Sadly, a great day was ruined when he heard that one of the marchers had been shot to death along the highway between Selma and Montgomery.

After that bittersweet experience, its aftermath, and for other reasons, Bob began a 32 year career in September 1965 teaching, coaching, and counseling at Campolindo High School in Moraga. He also moved to Concord and has lived there ever since.

Sadly, Bob lost his wife Frances in 2016, leaving three children, seven grandchildren, and four great grandchildren.

Sir Dominic 'Dee' Di Matteo September 2, 1921 - March 22, 2024.

Dominic “Dee” J. Di Matteo, passed away peacefully on March 22, 2024, with his family at his side at the age of 102. Dee was born on Sept. 2, 1921, in Wickliffe, Ohio, to Italian Immigrants Berardino and Lucia Di Matteo. Dee graduated from Wickliffe High School as Valedictorian and later was one of their first Hall of Fame inductees. After graduating, he briefly worked for the Ohio Rubber Co. before enlisting in the US Navy in 1940 at the age of 18. He spent 3years as an aviation mechanic and tail-gunner at NAS Miami before being selected for the Navy’s V-5 Pilot Training Program. He earned his “Wings of Gold” in 1945. He loved flying and was recognized early on as an exceptional pilot.

Dee was transferred to study at Stanford University and continued to fly out of NAS Moffitt Field. Called back to flying fulltime for the Korean War, he completed several carrier deployments and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and multiple Air Medals. He served during 3 wars (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam) and flew over 50 Navy fixed & rotary wing aircraft, mostly fighters then on to the early carrier jets. He was beyond proud as his two sons followed him as Naval Aviators. He retired as Commanding Officer of the 12th Naval Recruiting District in San Francisco in 1971 completing 30 plus years of a distinguished Naval career.

While attending Stanford, at the Newman Club, Dee met the love of his life, Florie. They were married until Florie’s passing in 2018, after 66 amazing years together.

He worked at BART for 14 years. A very full life continued with Church, 3 Bridge Groups and cards, many classes, woodworking, gardening, house renovations, sports (bocci, Walnut Creekers Baseball, gym), SIRS, and lots of travel with family and decades long friends.

Sir Ron Sparacino May 21, 1943 - March 7, 2024.

Sir Denny O'Loughlin November 25, 1925 - February 8, 2024.