Dr. Lawrence H. Peterson Jr. DDS
1925-2017
Passed away peacefully following a short illness at age 92. A 63-year resident of San Mateo County, 54 of those years as a resident of Hillsborough.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Lawrence and Margaret Peterson, Lawrence Jr. joined the US Navy in 1943 and was soon selected for Midshipmen’s School, where he demonstrated a mastery of both seamanship and organizational skills. As a young Ensign, he was assigned to the Pacific, serving in the South Pacific, China and Japan. Shipping out of San Francisco’s Fort Mason during WW II, he noted that there was something very special about The City, and vowed to return.
In the postwar era, Lawrence attended the University of Pennsylvania and, upon graduation, traveled west to the University of Pittsburgh for his DDS degree. As a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Penn, he met his future wife, Barbara (née Dickson) at a shared event with her Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
Following the completion of his internship at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, Lt. JG Peterson was assigned to a residency in Maxillofacial Surgery at the San Diego Naval Hospital. Somehow, in whatever spare time he could find, he achieved his license to practice dentistry in California, at which point the US Navy determined that sea duty in Japan and the Philippines was in order. Returning to California in 1954, he joined a Navy reserve unit based at Treasure Island and soon began a 40-year private practice of dentistry in San Mateo. Lt. Commander Peterson retired from the US Navy reserve in 1983 after 40 years.
Lawrence served longtime directorships on the boards of both the California Dental Guild and San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District and has served as an ongoing benefactor to a wide variety of community organizations.
His lifelong love of the sea fueled his passion for numerous sailing adventures around the world, ranging from navigating his own Coronado-class sailboat in San Francisco Bay, to extended voyages in the British Virgin and Greek Islands. His wife Barbara accompanied him on every voyage, with children and grandchildren often filling in as crew. He was a member of both the Coyote Point Yacht Club and the Bitter End Yacht Club.
Pete, as he was known by friends, enthusiastically shared his devotion for golf, world travel, Bing Crosby’s annual Pebble Beach tournament, excellent scotch, Dixieland jazz, unique automobiles, the SF Opera, and regularly demonstrating his “Mr. Fix-anything” skills to his children and grandchildren.
The family thanks the entire staff of Silverado in Belmont for their dedicated and extraordinarily compassionate care.
Preceded in passing by his loving wife, Barbara, in 2008 and daughter, Christine in 2013, Lawrence is survived by his two sons, Robert (Diane) of Portola Valley and Kyle of Tampa, and three grandchildren, Mark (Sharon) of Washington DC, and Maxwell and Julia of Portola Valley.