Obituary of John Winton Riley

John Winton Riley was born on October 10, 1922 in Palo Alto, California. He was the youngest of three children and the only boy, so he was doted on by his parents, especially his mother, Margaret Anderson Riley. She had migrated from Ireland and met his father, Alfred, who had migrated from England in New York. John had two older sisters, Edith and Helen. The children were all born two years apart. As a young boy, John earned his own spending money by delivering papers and mowing lawns. He graduated from high school at 16 and went into San Jose State College, then transferred to Stanford University, where he was enrolled on the R.O.T.C. program (Reserve Officers Training Core.) He served 3 years as a Naval officer during WWII during which he was in charge of a mine-sweeper. He returned to Stanford on the G.I. bill and earned a Master's Degree in Civil-Sanitary Engineering. One night, he decided to visit a friend from Stanford named Harvard Lomax. The Lomax's were out for the evening and a young girl of 17 named Mary Ellen Svihra was baby-sitting their baby son. John had a very honest face, so she invited him to come in and wait if he wished. John was a listener rather than a conversationalist, so she did most (if not all) of the talking. She never expected to see him again, but had told him her name and that she lived in the neighborhood. She was surprised when John phoned and asked her if she wanted to go out for a cup of coffee. She did not drink coffee, never had, she told him, but he persisted by saying, "Perhaps I could come over and teach you how to make it." She did not want to know how to make it, but she was flattered that this older man with a master's degree was interested in her, so she said "ok." John was quite shy and quiet. He seemed to have had no experience with dating at all. He never took her to a movie or dinner or dancing. She went off to college and he continued to pursue her (in his rather odd way) and eventually they were married on September 4, 1949. She was almost 20 and he was almost 27. John was hired to work for the Santa Fe Tank and Tower Co. in Southern California, so they moved to a little town called Monterey Park. Their first child was born on February 11, 1951. Sadly, David Albert died on April 15 of a rare type of sudden pneumonia. John went to the Stanford Employment Office and was hired as an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Beirut, Lebanon. He wanted to remove her from the scene of their sudden tragic loss, so they traveled across the Atlantic on a luxury liner to Lebanon. Another boy, Steven Winton Riley was born there on February 6, 1952. John really wanted to practice Engineering, not teach it. So, after one year there, he and his wife and baby Steve flew back to the USA, stopping in England and Ireland on the way in order to visit John's relatives. John was then hired for a job working at an Atomic energy plant in North Augusta, South Carolina. Their daughter, Laurel Anne Riley was born there on April 15, 1953. John worked there for one year and then, homesick for California, the family went back to Palo Alto and bought a brand new house there right near his parents. John commuted to an Engineering firm in San Francisco for a year or so and then opened his own office in Los Altos in 1958. He moved his family to a custom home in Los Altos with four bedrooms because another baby was on his way; their third child, Daniel Stuart Riley, born July 2, 1959. John's business flourished as he sub-divided lots in Los Altos and began developing his own properties. This became one of his greatest passions, remodeling and developing land. Eventually, he brought each of his sons into his surveying, and construction projects. Shortly after the birth of his youngest son, John-Todd Richard Riley, on October 17, 1961, John And Mary Ellen were divorced, and he married his second wife, Janet Frank Rusch, acquiring three step-children, Laurie Jan, Peter, and Eric Rusch. In 1968 John and Janet had a child of their own, Matthew Kermit Riley, who is married and gave John 2 more grand-children, Griffin and Nicholas. John is survived by a total of 10 grand-children. The oldest is 22, Clay Winton Riley, Steve's son and he also has a son named Connoly 16, who is living with his other grandmother, Zora. Laurel Anne had two daughters, Heidi is 19, Leilani June is 16; Dan has two children, Deejay (Daniel James) 21 and Sabrina 16. Todd has two children, Kyra, who is 11 and J.T. is 10. Matthew's two children, Griffin, is 9 and Nicholas, is 5. John continued a tradition that his father began in the early 1900's, Backpacking in the Emigrant wilderness, starting at a pack station called Kennedy Meadows. The Riley family and friends planned and developed some of the first gear to hike deep into the back wilderness areas of Yosemite Park. John's first trip to Kennedy meadows was at the age of 14. This annual backpacking trip was one of his highlights of the year, lasting for John over 60 years. He tried to go every year since the first time in 1936, missing only a few dozen times until his last trip in 2005. The backpacking tradition is still continuing with two more generations of Riley's. His grandsons accompanied him on the last several trips. During his time living in Los Altos, John continued to purchase and develop property. One of his more challenging buildings was an old Spanish style house that had been moved a quarter mile from downtown Los Altos in 1975 onto one of his lots on the corner of El Monte and Summerhill. He and Jan lived there for 11 years while continuing to build rental houses on the other lots. John retired from Civil Engineering in 1988 and sold off or traded the properties. They moved to Santa Barbara, where they bought land and built a large house with guest quarters, for their large family to visit them often. They managed the three-story, multi use building in Solvang, that had been obtained in the trading of their Los Altos properties. After many years in the Santa Barbara area, they moved to Gearhart, Oregon where Janet had spent her childhood summers at the beach. John and Janet continued some building and remodeling of their home in Gearhart. In 2001 shortly after 9/11, John's wife of 36 years passed away. John stayed a few more years in Gearhart and then went to live in Fairfield, Iowa with his stepson Eric and step-daughter Denyse helping them build a granny unit above their garage. In 2006, John moved back to northern California, and stayed with his son Dan and daughter-in-law, Lauralee while visiting his other sons and grand-children. In 2007, John moved to Sunny view Manor in Cupertino, California where he passed away peacefully on August 12, 2011. A Memorial celebration will be held on Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. at Spangler Mortuary in Mountain View, California in order to celebrate John's life and remember the great man that he was.




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