From alt.obituaries
The San Francisco Chronicle
JUNE 5, 2005, SUNDAY, FINAL EDITION
BYLINE: Michael Taylor
Brian Fewer, who grew up so fascinated with trees that he became the "Johnny Appleseed" of San Francisco, planting trees all over the city for more than 20 years, has died in his Richmond District home.
Mr. Fewer died Wednesday of complications from pneumonia. He was 93.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Mr. Fewer was an adventurous sort. When he was 19, he and a friend drove a Ford Model T from San Francisco to New York and back in
1931. The round trip took them three months, covered 9,000 miles over rutted roads, and resulted in at least 11 flat tires.Mr. Fewer later learned to fly planes and got his private pilot's license before World War II.
During the rest of the 1930s, Mr. Fewer worked in a lumberyard, spent a year sailing the world as a swabbie in the merchant marine and began working as a gardener for the city of San Francisco in 1940. Here, working with shovels and hoes, he found his mtier.
"That's when he knew he liked to be in the outdoors and work with his hands," said his wife, Mimi Fewer of San Francisco.
In 1942, with World War II raging, Mr. Fewer enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Hawaii, where his facility with aviation was noticed and he was assigned to maintain fighter planes.
After the war, Mr. Fewer went back to his job as a city gardener and spent five years going to night school at San Francisco City College, studying horticulture and eventually becoming a master arborist.
"He used to say, 'Just think! From a little seed that you plant, you get this gorgeous tree with a huge trunk. Water it and it goes up,' " Mimi Fewer said. "He liked to see things grow. He was an environmentalist, and he believed in good air and good earth and the good food that came from the earth."
In 1955, Mr. Fewer was given the job of city superintendent of street trees.
"He was given a minor Rec & Park job that nobody else wanted, and no funding, and he went nuts," Chronicle Columnist Scott Ostler wrote in an affectionate story about Mr. Fewer in 2001. "He turned a job into a mission. He changed forever the way the city looks and feels."
When Mr. Fewer "got the tree job, there was no money budgeted for trees," Ostler noted, but it was a minor obstacle for Mr. Fewer, who "pounded on doors, soliciting funds."
Before Mr. Fewer came along, there were about 35,000 trees in San Francisco. After Mr. Fewer left his job, there were
200,000.Before Mr. Fewer, the trees were "mostly in the ritzy 'hoods, planted by developers," Ostler wrote. "Fewer planted trees everywhere."
"Trees give you a lift in spirit," Mr. Fewer explained.
Mr. Fewer held his post from 1955 to 1976. Even after he retired, he kept on with his arboreal missions, helping to found Friends of the Urban Forest, a nonprofit organization that plants and cultivates trees in San Francisco.
Mr. Fewer was also an avid tennis player, playing at the Mountain Lake Park courts three times a week.
Mr. Fewer's first wife, Ruth, died in 1988. In addition to his second wife, he is survived by a brother, Edward Fewer of Paradise (Butte County); two daughters, Patricia Fleming of Palo Alto and Mary Grabinsky of Coquille, Ore.; four sons, Brian Fewer Jr., John Fewer, Robert Fewer and Michael Fewer, all of San Francisco; and 12 grandchildren.
A vigil will take place at 7 p.m. today at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 40th Avenue and Balboa Street, San Francisco. Funeral Mass will be celebrated at the same church at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
The family suggests donations to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105; or the Neighborhood Parks Council, 451 Hayes St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco 94102.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Brian Fewer studied horticulture at San Francisco City College and became a master arborist.