San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
RANCHER, CONSERVATIONIST, HUSBAND OF JOAN EMBERY
Lakeside ranch owner and conservationist Duane Pillsbury sometimes took a back seat to his wife of nearly 42 years, local icon and national celebrity Joan Embery, but he never minded. In fact, he usually laughed about it.
Embery, an animal and environmental advocate, captivated the country in the 1970s with her appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, always accompanied by a menagerie of animals. For more than three decades, she was a goodwill ambassador to the San Diego Zoo’s Zoological Society of San Diego, hosting educational TV shows and raising awareness of animals and wildlife conservation through books, tours across the globe, and projects near and far.
Pillsbury, 20 years Embrey’s senior, always accompanied her on her world travels and during her TV appearances.
“He was always behind the curtain, he was my rock, behind me at every show and my greatest cheerleader,” Embery recalled. “He liked working with me and didn’t mind when someone called him ‘Mr. Embery.’ He didn’t have an ego. He would roll with it and smile. I remember once he was moving animal crates around and someone asked him, ‘Do you work for Joan?’ He’d tell them yes. He’d be asked (during Embery’s appearances), ‘Could you do this or that?’ and always said yes.”
Pillsbury, a Nebraska native who moved to Lakeside and became a teacher, rancher, conservationist and artist, passed away Sept. 16 from complications of pneumonia. The illness came after he took a serious fall down an embankment while riding one of his horses, who slipped, in midjuly. Pillsbury was 91.
Warren Duane Pillsbury was born June 17, 1929, in Omaha, Neb., to Hazel Belle and Warren Howard Pillsbury, who also had a daughter, Donna. After his parents divorced, Hazel married Leslie Arthur True and they became a blended family, with Duane gaining three half-sisters and a halfbrother, eventually leaving Nebraska for San Diego.
Pillsbury graduated from Hoover High School in 1947, then went on to San Diego State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s degree in economics. Embery said her husband was in the Sigma Chi fraternity and both wrestled and played football for the Aztecs.
He later married and had two daughters, Holly and Torrey. After a divorce, Pillsbury became an economics and real estate instructor at Cuyamaca College when it first opened in 1978.
Local developer Daryl Priest was one of Pillsbury’s first students. Priest remembered being a teenager fresh out of El Cajon Valley High School who took a class from Pillsbury at Cuyamaca, and asking Pillsbury to meet with him before class one day to glean insider’s knowledge.
“I was a long-haired hippie kid with big dreams and no money,” Priest recalled. “I remember taking his real estate course and hearing how you could buy a lot for $32,000 and sell it for $40,000. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, is this possible? How do I get in on this?’ For me, it was like a winning lottery ticket. He gave me sage advice and life lessons, which are the foundations of my company even today. I thank him for that.”
Pillsbury met Embery when he was 50 through a matchmaking effort by his daughter, Torrey. Torrey knew Embery, then 30, because they were both avid horsewomen who rode competitively and showed horses in local events.
She said that after previously calling off engagements with two previous paramours, she quickly became serious with Pillsbury.
“I was totally into my career then and I was working at the zoo literally 7/24, on call totally immersed,” Embery said. “With riding and showing horses, there wasn’t much time left. Making a decision between my passions and getting married . ... I couldn’t do both. But when I met Duane, we were so in tune about everything, with what our interests were, in how we spent time. We just enjoyed each other’s company.”
She said she was living in Lemon Grove when she helped Pillsbury and his daughters build a new home in Lakeside after his previous property in the Eucalyptus Hills area burned.
The home is still on the 20-acre ranch called Pillsbury Land & Livestock Co., near the San Diego River trails that take horseback riders for miles through the scenic rural valley. The couple own 30 acres across the street where, since 1981, they have leased the space for their Lakeside Saddle & Driving Club.
Embery said before proposing, Pillsbury told her, “You’ve worked so hard on this place, I think you ought to be part of it.” That happened on the cusp of a trip she was taking to Rwanda in East Africa. Embery said it was a good thing he did because she fell in love with Africa on that trip. The couple traveled to Africa 12 times during their marriage.
Pillsbury dabbled in drawing as a youngster in Nebraska and picked up sculpturing, wax and clay whittling, wood carving and creating bronze, silver and gold jewelry in later years. He did much of his crafting on long plane rides across the globe.
In addition to his wife, Pillsbury is survived by his daughters, Holly Layne Pillsbury and Torrey Gayle Pillsbury; his sister, Donna Barner; half-sisters, Janice True and Judy Gilbert; and a granddaughter.