Wondering if anyone had a link or text of Jules M. Eichorn'shere:
obituary. I'd like to publish it in my climing club's newsletter.
OBITUARY FOR JULES M. EICHORN
After 88 years of enjoying the beauties of the Sierra Nevada range and
the delights of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, Jules Marquard Eichorn died peacefully at home in his sleep, Tuesday, February 15, 2000. He was
born February 7,1912, to Hilmar and Frieda Eichorn, both German
immigrants. Though frail and often sick in his childhood, he learned to
enjoy walking on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County on Sundays with his
parents and brother, John Peter and sister, Eleanor. His parents also strongly encouraged his clear musical talent; at an early age he
studied violin at the San Francisco Community Music School under the
tutelage of Gertrude Field, his future teaching mentor. His first piano teacher was Ansel Adams, of future photography fame; Jules was his first pupil. Their friendship was to last a lifetime. Ansel also introduced
Jules to the high Sierra through the 1927 Annual Outing, ascending Alta
Peak, Jules' first mountain climb at the age of 15. To continue to pay
for his piano lessons from Ansel, Jules washed prints in the Adams's
family bathtub.
In 1929, Jules graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School in San
Francisco and continued to teach piano at the Community School for 50
cents a lesson. Then his amazing life as a pioneer rockclimber began,
first in the summer of 1930 in the Tetons and after much practice
climbing in Berkeley, California, the Sierra Nevada with its many
unclimbed peaks. In 1931 he made the first ascent of the 2400' East
Face of Mt. Whitney, then Thunderbolt Peak in a frightening lightening
storm, then numerous ascents in the Minaret range, one later to be named Eichorn Minaret. However, the climb for which he is most famous is the
1934 ascent of the Higher Cathedral Spire in Yosemite with Dick Leonard
and Bestor Robinson. Here, for the first time, rope, pitons,
carabiners, and dynamic belays were used to ascend this 700' granite
needle. The climb signaled the beginning of all future high-angle, big
wall climbing in North America. In 1934 he helped locate the body of
Walter Starr, Jr. (Pete Starr), the writer-pioneer killed climbing alone
in the Minarets. For his efforts, Walter Starr Sr. provided Jules with
a scholarship to U.C, Berkeley. In the early 1940s he trained the
National Park Service rangers in Yosemite to rescue injured or stranded
rock climbers. After W.W.II, he took groups of teenage boys into the
High Sierra on mountaineering adventures with the greatest mountain man
of his time, Norman Clyde.
His music life paralleled his mountain life. In 1934, he entered U.C. Berkeley and in 1938 graduated with a degree and credential in music.
For the next 35 years, he taught instrumental, orchestral and choral
music in the Hillsborough Schools District, near San Mateo. His
students remember him as a particularly gifted teacher.
Jules married Sarah Beckman in 1937, and they had six children.
Divorced in 1957, he married Kay Calderhead in 1960; they had a child
and Kay's daughter by a former marriage joined the household. That
marriage dissolved in 1973. In 1982 he married Shirley Lhyne, who with
her three children, remained with him until his death.
He continued to walk in the Sierra until the 1980s when he turned his
full attention to environmental conservation. His concern, like those
around him, was that wild places should be forever preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. With that agenda, he was elected for
eight years as a Director of the Sierra Club. He was a tireless worker
to create and enlarge new and existing parks. both local and national.
He worked to elect environmentally-friendly candidates including Tom
Lantos, Byron Sher, Arlen Gregorio and Malcolm Dudley. At public
hearings his presence created an aura of depth and purpose. He will be
sorely missed by the conservation community.
He will be remembered fondly by his wife of 18 years, Shirley
Lhyne-Eichorn and by eleven children and step children: David H.
Eichorn, Gertrude W. Dixon, Julia A. Osborn-Gourley, John W. Eichorn,
Hilmar M Eichorn, Peter M. Eichorn, Linda F. Renfro, Cara L.
Eichorn-Osos, Robinie Lhyne-Alinejad, Peter L. Lhyne, and Anders Erik
Lhyne. Also surviving him are 18 grandchildren, ten great
grandchildren, nephew Tom Manning and the children of his brother, John
Peter Eichorn.
His gift to the world was his great love of the mountains and music and
an extraordinary ability to share these with those around him. "Music
and the mountains; they're the greatest," he liked to say.
On March 18 at 3:00 PM, a memorial music service will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 2124 Brewster Ave., Redwood City. A
second mountaineering memorial will be held May 20 at the Eichorn
Memorial Grove in Big Basin State Park at noon. Please call
510-524-9473 for directions. Contributions in his name may be made to
the following: Hidden Villa, 26879 Moody Rd., Los Altos Hills, CA
94022; Sempervirens Fund, Drawer BE, Los Altos, CA 94023; Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 130 Prospect St., Cambridge, MA, 02139. Questions: David Eichorn at Fine Breadboards, Kensington, CA 94707, 510-524-9473.
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