James Sutter Kason

09/22/1934 - 04/12/2024

Jim passed away on April 12, 2024, after a two-year illness, at the age of 89. He was the great-great-grandson of California’s Capt. John Augustus Sutter and was born to Choren H. and Dolores C. (Sutter) Kason in San Francisco. He attended St. James and St. Ignatius until he moved with his family at age 15 to Redwood City. There he graduated from Sequoia High School and San Jose State, majoring in Speech and Drama and went on to get his Masters degree at Stanford. Jim was multitalented; he was an artist, a musician, a glorious singer, an actor and a composer and, while attending the schools and universities, he wrote several musicals that were performed with great reviews. Jim lived both in Los Angeles and New York City, where he pursued his career in performing for 30 years until he moved back to Redwood City to be a caregiver for his aging grandmother. He continued performing up and down the peninsula in many shows at all the local theaters. Jim began teaching at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic School and was a beloved teacher there for 17 years. He began to share his wonderful voice in the choir and as a Cantor at Mass at OLMC, St. Denis in Menlo Park and St. Roberts in San Bruno and sang at many weddings and funerals. He loved to travel and has many memories captured in brilliant photos of his nine trips to Europe. Jim had a wonderful full and rewarding life with too many accomplishments, adventures and stories to write about here, but he was well loved by his many theater friends, students he taught and all who knew him. Besides being immensely talented, Jim was kind, generous, thoughtful and caring. He will be greatly missed. He is survived by his sister, Corinne A. Kason of Redwood City.

A Celebration of Jim’s life will be held on Saturday, June 1, 2024, beginning with a 10 a.m., Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, 300 Fulton Street, Redwood City, Calif., followed by a reception in the church hall.