June Rae Doyle

June “Rae” Doyle, longtime resident and activist of San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood, died peacefully in September 2021. After raising 5 children as a working mom, she completed a BA at SFSU and spent the next 2 decades working to fight environmentally unsafe housing developments, enhancing local parks and playgrounds, and promoting local retail. Rae was an officer of the Greater West Portal Neighborhood Association, a journalist and historian, and wrote countless articles for GWPNA’s “Fogcutter” and the West Portal Monthly.

Rae’s achievements were honored by Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Myrna Melgar. Rae’s enthusiasm and, perhaps, her signature chocolate chip cookies, spurred others to volunteer and to do more than they thought possible. Rae’s wit and passion for helping others live on in the lives she has touched.

Joan Mitchell Dekelboum, Bay Area landscape architect and community volunteer, died in Marin on October 4th, 2021. She was 87. In the year leading up to her death, Joan spent every day in the company of her beloved daughters, sons-in-law and grandsons. Together they did what she had always taught them: Revel in each other’s company and find delight in the moments you are offered. Whether setting the Rosh Hashanah table, creating floral arrangements, planning a drought tolerant garden or capturing photos of her beloved seahorses, Joan’s artistic eye, sense of wonder and adventure permeated each of her endeavors. This showed up in how she curated her outfits, designed and decorated her home and garden. She and her late husband, Allen, shared with their daughters a love of music, art, entertaining, and travel, complemented by a commitment to continuous learning and adventure.

Officially, at the time of her death, Joan was a retired Landscape Architect, but that was merely a title change that allowed her even more flexibility in continuing her decades-long pursuit of community building and landscape beautification.

Joan was born August 31, 1934 in San Francisco, CA, to Minnie and Leonard Mitchell. She was primarily raised by her grandmother Esther in the Russian/Jewish neighborhood called “Out the Road,” now known as Portola (She spent her high school years in Los Angeles with her mother, brother, Dennis, and sister Garrie. She returned to the Bay Area to attend University of California at Berkeley where she met Allen. They were married August 21, 1955. In the 1970s, Joan was the first woman elected to the Board of Directors for her San Francisco neighborhood Forest Hill, and her landscaping journey began in earnest. As a board member, she oversaw the care and design of 11 miles of sidewalk plantings, 1500 trees and five traffic islands.

Ever in search of knowledge, within ten years of joining the board, Joan completed San Francisco Community College’s Horticulture program with a degree in Landscape Management and Ornamental Horticulture; followed by a degree from Berkeley’s Landscape Architectural program; she started Joan Dekelboum Designs and became a licensed Landscape Architect. Joan volunteered for the San Francisco Department of Public Works and was Vice Chairman of the Tree Advisory Board, where she was instrumental in the creation of the Public Works Street Tree Management Plan. She remained a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects until her retirement in 2015.

While she was building her landscaping knowledge, Joan was also deeply involved with the Sisterhood at Temple Emanuel in

San Francisco. During her membership, she worked on the Museum Committee and helped create the Biblical Garden at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park. She made synagogue history when she joined her eldest daughter Lisa and mother-in-law Anne, in becoming the first multigenerational Bnai Mitzvah. Together the three learned Hebrew, studied Torah and shared responsibilities for leading services on May 4, 1991.

When Joan and Allen moved to Marin in 2000, she joined the Hamilton Base Relocation Realignment Committee, focusing on making the base suitable for habitation and creating wetlands. In 2006, she became a member of the Marin Master Gardeners where she proudly held the role as the “Worm Box Lady” at Ross Art and Garden Center, giving hands-on tours of the Butterfly Garden to first and second graders. She also was a member the Marin County Library Foundation Board, working to improve the physical structures of the 11 Marin County libraries. When Joan and Allen moved to their beloved Smith Valley Ranch Homes, she served as the Chairman of the Smith Ranch Homes Landscape Committee. As much as Joan loved the landscape of Northern California, she also loved the sea. Throughout the 70s and 80s, she and Allen spent countless weekends with their daughters sailing on the Bay. They both helped design, build, and manage the Tiburon Yacht Club and were also active members in the Marin Sail and Power Squadron.

In the 1970’s, they took up scuba diving, exploring the world’s underwater landscape with cameras in hand. It should come as no surprise that she took it upon herself to learn to swim and learn photography to prepare for this next adventure. In her years of diving, she communed with a vast array of marine life, riding manta rays in the Sea of Cortez, swimming with whale sharks off the coast of Australia and feeding an egg obsessed grouper in the Red Sea. But she found her greatest joy in the tiny seahorse, which she had an unerring knack for finding.

Joan is survived by her daughter Lisa Nelson, husband Dennis and Joan’s grandsons Joshua and Seamus; daughter Sharon Dekelboum, husband Peter Crandall; daughter Tracy Dekelboum; her brother, Dennis Holcomb and his wife Judy, and her sister Garrie Katznelson

Contributions will be accepted at the California Academy of Sciences at give.calacademy.org and the UC Marin Master Gardener program at www.donate. ucanr.edu.