Edward J. Nevin Jr.

August 26, 1914 ~ June 19, 2017

Edward Joseph Nevin, Jr., who died on June 19 at the age of 102, accomplished quite a lot in a life dedicated to public service.

Born and raised in San Francisco’s Mission District, Ed Nevin graduated from St. Joseph’s Grammar School, Sacred Heart High School and St. Mary’s College. He joined the San Francisco Police Department in 1942 and served with distinction over a 32-year career. Ed began as an officer walking the beat in the Richmond District, followed by stints in the office of Mayor Elmer Robinson, head of the famed Chinatown Squad in the 1950s, director of Special Services (“Vice Squad”) during the turbulent ‘60s, commander of the Housing Authority Police in the wake of “urban renewal,” and chief of San Francisco International Airport Police, where he professionalized the force, before retiring in 1974.

A contemporary of Mayor Joseph Alioto – they were in the same class at Sacred Heart and St. Mary’s – Nevin rose to the command staff of the SFPD and was a frequently rumored candidate for police chief and sheriff during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In addition to his brilliant, demanding career, Nevin was a familiar presence in community, serving as the president of the Council of Catholic Men. A true friend of the communities he served, especially in the Fillmore District and Chinatown, Nevin was an early supporter of racial parity in the police department and other key areas of civic life.

But for Ed Nevin, there was never any doubt about what came first.

“The most important thing in my life,” he told a would-be biographer in 2014, “was my wife.”

Mazie Cecilia McDermott met and mesmerized Ed Nevin while they were both in high school in the 1930s. They soon moved on, he to college and she to nursing school, until a fateful streetcar ride on the No. 5 headed downtown. They never really disembarked.

Ed and Mazie married on August 26 – which happened to be both of their birthdays – in the summer of 1939, and they spent the next 70 years together.

It must have been his Irish luck. The seventh son of seven children, Nevin was born to Irish immigrants who lived at 15th and Harrison streets, when the Mission was still an Irish neighborhood.

Proving the luck of seven, Ed and Mazie had the same number of children: Virginia Radanovich; Edward Nevin III; the late Michael Nevin, an SFPD inspector, mayor of Daly City and San Mateo County supervisor; Katie Nevin; James Nevin; Margaret Mary Johnston and Eileen Donohoe.

Starting out in Noe Valley and then permanently planted at 26th and Judah in the Sunset District, the large Nevin family was at the heart of San Francisco’s civic life, especially its progressive Catholic community.

Ed and Mazie regularly hosted prominent, trailblazing priests and big thinkers of the day around their dinner table. They initiated a groundbreaking counseling program for engaged Catholic couples, called “Pre-Cana Conferences,” that became a staple for those seeking to get married in the Church.

For decades, family gatherings at 26th Avenue were legendary, especially at Christmastime, and lured in far more than just family. And in addition to their own “Seven Miracles,” Ed and Mazie were dedicated to the Catholic Youth Organization and helped raise countless children, in and outside of their extended family.

In 1981, the Nevins made national headlines and Ed was profiled by Dan Rather on “60 Minutes,” when the family sued the U.S. government for secretly conducting bacterial warfare tests on an unsuspecting San Francisco public, killing Ed’s father, back in 1950. (Although the Navy escaped liability, the lawsuit, brought by attorney Edward Nevin III, exposed one of the government’s darkest secrets.)

Ed and Mazie enjoyed a sun-drenched retirement in the Sonoma countryside through the late ‘70s and ‘80s, where they continued to welcome hordes of family and friends. They later moved to San Ramon and, finally, to Millbrae, near “Papa’s Airport.” Several years after Mazie’s death in 2008, Ed moved in with family in Stockton, where he relished his time sitting in the Central Valley sun, reading, carousing and eating, and where he passed away peacefully last week.

On the occasion of his 100th birthday, in 2014, Ed Nevin was feted at the United Irish Cultural Center, where he was honored by Police Chief Greg Suhr, Mayor Ed Lee, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and the Consul General of Ireland, who said Nevin exemplified “the true spirit of the Irish in America, working to make the wider community a safer, closer and more welcoming place.”

Former Mayor Willie Brown, who was in attendance, recalled his days when Commander Nevin “headed vice and I was representing hookers.” The San Francisco Chronicle noted that hundreds of people jammed into the cavernous room to hear Ed speak, telling the crowd “because I am an old geezer, I now have the courage to say: I love all of you.”

Ed and Mazie’s dedication to others ran deep throughout their lives, and was reflected in future generations. One son, two grandsons and one granddaughter became decorated San Francisco Police officers. Several family members became nurses, teachers, attorneys, social workers, elected and appointed officials, and other service-oriented members of their community.

Ed and Mazie’s 23 grandchildren, most of whom still live in the Bay Area, remain tight-knit, and Ed often said that brought him his greatest joy. He and Mazie were rewarded with 50 great-grandchildren (and counting). Apart from his unquenchable thirst for Mazie, Ed’s greatest sorrow was the loss of his son, Michael, to cancer in 2012.

A towering presence at 6-foot-2, “Big Ed” was at the center of San Francisco life over the course of a remarkable century, and he remained a quiet champion of civil rights to the end.

“In this century, that I practically cover, San Francisco was a tremendous place to live,” he said. “The most interesting changes I have seen in my lifetime were the changes that happened with racism, with homosexuality,” he said. “We had a bad record in this country, and in the world, in those areas.” But, as a centenarian, Ed Nevin, ever the progressive Christian, marveled at how far the arc of the moral universe had bent toward justice in his lifetime.

He added women’s suffrage (secured when he was 6) to the list of his century’s great achievements, but recently expressed bitter disappointment at being denied the satisfaction of seeing the first woman elected president – despite a long policy of protecting his own “Australian ballot.”

Nevertheless, Ed Nevin maintained an essentially optimistic, profoundly enlightened perspective on life. Having outlived all his contemporaries, he made friends easily and often, right up to the end. He read widely, especially the San Francisco Chronicle, every day, from cover to cover. He was inquisitive, insightful and eloquent, if slightly shy. Big Ed had a talent for listening more than he spoke, which made his oratory that much more powerful.

A natural gentleman, he was charming to all.

But it was Mazie, always Mazie, who was at the core of Ed’s universe, at the forefront of his mind, and nearly always on his tongue.

“You are the dearest, sweetest sweetheart a fellow could ever have, and I am going to be with you always. Always – in all ways … Eddie,” he wrote to her before their wedding.

Nobody who ever spent more than a few minutes with him ever doubted that Ed Nevin kept that promise. Always.

A funeral mass for Edward J. Nevin, Jr., will be held at 11 a.m., Wednesday, June 28, at St. Anne of the Sunset, 850 Judah St., San Francisco. The mass will be preceded by a Visitation with family at 10. In lieu of flowers, please contribute to Hospice of San Joaquin, www.hospicesj.org, or the charity of your choice. “Stars in Our Skies,” a film about Ed Nevin’s life, can be viewed at www.vimeo.com/126276397.