Arthur Jerome Inerfield
August 23, 1918 - June 16, 2017
Arthur Inerfield died surrounded by family members and friends on Friday, June 16, 2017. He would have been 99 years old in August, and maintained his sense of humor and clarity until almost the very end. He is mourned by his three daughters: Phyllis Kleid (Napa, CA), Liz Amendola (Yountville, CA), and Janice Naymark (Saratoga, CA).
Arthur Jerome Inerfield was born August 23, 1918 at home in New York City. His parents were Joseph and Fannie Inerfield. Arthur was the youngest of three children; his brother Abe was 14 years older than he, and his sister Marion was 10 years older. Both siblings doted on their little brother. Art graduated from Thomas Jefferson High school at 15, and went to work in the garment district, pushing loaded trolleys of fabric up and down Seventh Avenue. He attended CCNY and later NYU, where he majored in Civil Engineering, emphasizing water quality control.
Art was a Captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was stationed in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Receiving orders to get over to Hickam Field right away, the 23-year-old arrived in time for the second wave of bombing there. He was ordered to supervise the evacuation of over 200 women and children to a cave where they were told the Japanese would be invading Hawaii. For several days they waited with one machine gun outside the cave, and one inside the cave, for the invasion, which fortunately never came.
During the course of World War II, Art was stationed in the South Pacific, including Christmas Island; Australia; and New Guinea, overseeing the construction of airstrips and other landing support. In 1945 he was transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington in preparation for transfer to Japan. He was set up on a blind date with Dorothy Levy, a Lieutenant in the WACs who charmed him with her dark Sephardic good looks, her ability to speak Spanish (Ladino) and her lovely singing voice. She had grown up in the Sephardic community in Seattle and had been transferred home from Daytona Beach on compassionate leave to be with her father, who was terminally ill with cancer. Arthur in turn charmed Dorothy with his ability to tell jokes and his stories of growing up in Brooklyn. Despite a few raised eyebrows at such a “mixed” couple, they were married six weeks later, on August 11, 1945. They were on their brief honeymoon in downtown Seattle when they heard a ruckus outside their hotel and ran out to discover that the war was over. After a brief stint in LA, they settled back in Seattle with baby Phyllis, where Art completed his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Washington.
Arthur and Dorothy had three daughters: Phyllis, Janice, and Liz, and lived in Sacramento, California, where Art was a water quality engineer managing portions of the historic California Water Project. In 1966, Art went to work for a consulting engineering company to work on the Texas Water Project, and the family lived briefly in Austin, Texas. Settling in 1967 on the San Francisco peninsula, Arthur and Dorothy lived in Hillsborough and were happily married for 43 years until Dorothy’s death from nonHodgkin’s lymphoma in 1988. At the time of her illness, Art was the President of the Board of Trustees at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo, which had 1100 members. The board and the congregation were very supportive of Dad during this difficult time.
When Dad was 72, he decided he wanted to parachute out of an airplane. So he did, without telling his daughters, and broke his ankle on the landing. When he sheepishly called Phyllis to come and pick him up, she threatened to break his other ankle, as well!
Wanting to be more involved with supporting cancer research, Dad became a very heavily involved volunteer with (at that time)The Regional Cancer Foundation Second Opinion service in San Francisco, which provides free second opinions to anyone with cancer, using a volunteer panel of physicians. There he met another Dorothy, Dorothy Stern, and two of them resided happily in San Francisco together until Dorothy’s death from melanoma in 2007. One of Art’s dear projects was the Arthur and Dorothy Levy Inerfield Endowed Chair for Melanoma Research at the UCSF medical school.
Dad became Grandpa to seven kids: Russell, Andrew, and Joanna Naymark; Jonathan and Suzanne Kleid; and Daniel and Jeremy Amendola. He is also the proud greatgrandpa to Chloe Kleid and Lila and Lucas Naymark.
Dad was residing in San Francisco at the Broadmoor where he met Blossom Levin and fell madly in love. She was and is always the best-dressed woman in the room. Together they moved to Rhoda Goldman Plaza in San Francisco where she taught Dad to appreciate classical music and the San Francisco Giants. Blossom’s children Sue Ann Schiff, Irving and Myron Levin, were great companions to them as well.
Dad was an incredibly intelligent man, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of history, especially the Civil War and both World Wars, although he was ardently anti-war. He could meet anyone and find a topic for discussion with them whether it was puppies or the political situation in the Philippines. In our memories, Dad will always be the life of the party, a passionate reader, a prolific composer of poems, and a lifelong music lover, whose favorite singing group would always be the Andrews sisters.
Dad was buried next to our mom in a private ceremony at Hills of Eternity, Colma. To honor the memory of Art, donations to The Second Opinion (thesecondopinion.org) will support their mission of providing free comprehensive second opinions to adults in California diagnosed with cancer.