John Underhill was an integral part of our historical society and museum. John passed away on January 24, 2026. We will miss him dearly.
John Ridgway Underhill was born in Berkeley in 1931 to a Quaker family that had its roots in the Winthrop Fleet’s arrival in Massachusetts Bay in 1630. His grandfather, Dr. William W. Underhill (1869-1913), came to Berkeley in the late 1800s, along with cousin, Reuben Underhill. Both William and Reuben Underhill settled on Tamalpais Rd. Dr. Underhill worked for an insurance company in San Francisco and took the ferry with neighbor and friend Bernard Maybeck. Dr. Underhill’s and Maybeck’s children were friends; John Underhill’s father, Alfred, and his siblings often gathered around the large Maybeck hearth in the evening, “the place to be,” according to John.
Alfred Underhill married another neighbor and Maybeck family friend, Katharine Webb Gibbs, who lived across the street at 36 Tamalpais. Katharine designed houses, including 35 Tamalpais in 1928, for her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Ethel Mitchell Underhill (1872-1936), who was now a widow (Dr. William Underhill had died of a heart attack in 1913). Katharine went on to design the house in which she and Alfred lived on Poppy Lane, as well as to work with architect W.R. Yelland on the Tupper and Reed building.
Katharine and Alfred Underhill had three children, of whom John was the oldest. Younger brother William became a noted sculptor and professor of art at Alfred University. John’s younger sister, Ann, also moved to upstate New York, where her husband taught history at Syracuse University.
While John’s family was living on Poppy Lane, his mother taught art at Willard Junior High and his father taught Spanish in Hayward. John had fond memories of roaming the Berkeley hills with a neighborhood band of boys, one of whom was the son of C. S. Forester, author of The African Queen. Sadly, John’s mother passed away when John was thirteen, followed by his father when John was eighteen. The children were taken care of in the Poppy Lane home by their aunts Bertha and Mary.
John graduated from Berkeley High School in 1949 and attended UC Berkeley for two years, before being stationed at Fort Ord with the US Army during the Korean War. After two years of service, Underhill returned to UC Berkeley on the GI Bill, where he graduated with a major in geography and a minor in botany. Upon graduation, Underhill worked as a high-resolution photographer at a UC Berkeley cancer research laboratory.
In the mid-1950s, John married Diane Hopper. Sons Dwight and Stacy were born in 1961 and 1962. Until 1963, the family lived in the old Poppy Lane home, at which point they sold the home and moved to Lafayette. The couple divorced in 1972, and John moved back to Berkeley and, eventually, to El Cerrito. Ever the avid outdoorsman, John took the family up to June Lake in the Eastern Sierra every year; in 1975, he and his family climbed Mt. Whitney. He was active in the Sierra Club, gardening, sailing, and the Berkeley Folk Dancers. It was at the Folk Dancers that John met his second wife, Clem Hall; the two were married in 1989.
In 1991, John took early retirement and devoted himself to new activities: The Treasure Island Museum, the USS Potomac, the Berkeley Historical Society, and travel. John and Clem took several trips to Europe and traveled to Central America.
In the 1990s, Underhill became an increasingly active volunteer at the Historical Society, joining the board, docenting, and leading numerous walks. True to his botanist background, John was single-handedly responsible for planting and maintaining a small garden in front of the Society. As recently as fall 2024, John faithfully tended to the garden, watering the often-parched earth.
John Underhill is survived by his wife Clem H. Underhill of El Cerrito, his son Stacy Underhill of Porto, Portugal, his sister Ann Tussing of Syracuse, New York, and three grandchildren, Marlena Underhill of Sendai, Japan, Blake Underhill of Richmond, California, and Owen Underhill of Portland, Oregon. Family and friends alike will miss John Underhill’s quick and easy smile and his zest for life.
