William (Bill) Yoes

July 28, 1932 - February 14, 2023

Bill will be sorely missed by all who knew him. Born in Portland, Oregon, the eldest son of Gilliam W. Yoes and Frances Starr Yoes, Bill is predeceased by his brother Jim, his ex-wife Patricia, his partner Joe Rogalski, and his partner Charles Briggs. He is survived by his brother Jack (Claudia), his sons Phillip (Lynette), Peter (Cheryl), Paul, and Forrest Briggs, his grandsons Spencer and Jonathan, and his partner Doug Yule.

After graduating from Franklin High School in Portland, Bill joined the U.S. Navy and served as a medical corpsman with the Marines during the Korean War. He used his Naval medical experience to become licensed as a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) in California and worked for thirty years for the City and County of San Francisco as an LVN at the Morrison Center and then as the first male LVN at S.F. General Hospital. He joined the S.F. Emergency Medical Service (EMS) and worked as the Admitting Officer at S.F. General, as a medical steward on the ambulances, as Assistant Superintendent and as Superintendent of the EMS. While Superintendent he worked with others to develop and implement San Francisco’s rape exam protocol in order to give rape victims more privacy and to try to preserve their dignity. He spent the last ten years of his career with San Francisco as the Emergency Planning Coordinator for the Mayor’s Office.

He met his wife Patricia while working at the Morrison Center. They were married for 24 years and raised three sons before divorcing in 1979. Bill met his partner Joe, and they lived together in the City and later in San Rafael. After Joe died in 1991, Bill moved up to the house they had purchased in Sebastopol as a place to retire. Bill met Charles and his son Forrest while in Sebastopol. They lived there until Charles died, at which point Forrest opted to stay with Bill until he finished high school and went off to college. Bill and Doug met in 2004, and they have been together since.

Bill’s first love was art; he was always an artist. He studied at the Portland Museum of Art, the Academy of Advertising Art in San Francisco, and College of Marin in Kentfield. He was extensively involved with the Terra Linda Art Association and with the Sebastopol Center for the Arts where he served as President of the Board and co-coordinated their biannual fiber arts show for ten exhibits with his expertise for innovative installation helping build the show’s reputation internationally. His work pushed the limits using unusual materials and subject matter. He worked in various media, settling on sculpting with window screen and hardware cloth. He exhibited his work, notably his series of life-sized Kabuki costumes and his Cotilion series of dancing couples, in several venues.