I first met Red Stephenson in 1947 when I was five, shortly after our family moved from Eugene to Berkeley. Apparently, he had met me earlier, when I was too young to remember. During the war years, my parents served as weekend hosts for workers in the Civilian Public Service who were stationed near Eugene, and Red was one of them. By the time he died in 2010, I had come to consider him my surrogate father.
In 1947 my family began attending the Berkeley Friends Meeting on Vine Street. By 1949, four families in Vine Street Meeting, including my parents and the Stephensons, decided to buy property together at the top of the hill in Berkeley and to build an intentional, co-housing community there. The Stephensons’ house was completed in 1950. Red and his father-in-law did most of the construction. Our family’s home next door was completed in March of 1952.
I was ten at the time, and that’s when my real connection with Red began. We had no fences between the yards. Our families often enjoyed meals and backyard recreation together. We always felt free to ask for help or to borrow something.
Red liked to have fun, to help others have fun, and to feed people. He was the instigator of shared backyard cookouts. He took pride in his omelets. He liked ice cream. He would take several of us kids to a model railroad club in Emeryville to watch the trains run and then stop with us at the Berkeley Farms Creamery for ice cream cones on the way home.
One summer, Red hired me to look after his family’s yard while they went out of town for two months. A paying job! It gave me a chance to prove I was reliable and to earn some money. Later, I became a convenient and trusted babysitter for the Stephenson kids, Anne and Bob.
Red had great mechanical aptitude, and he was a good teacher. I learned a lot about construction from him, and how to use and care for tools. Many years later, when Red was in his eighties and visiting me in Eugene, I found that I needed to sharpen a knife. I had just acquired a grinder, and I asked Red if he would do the honors. Rather than tell me he thought the grinder was the wrong tool for the job, he paused a few seconds, then said, “I’m not sure I would trust myself on it.” What a tactful response! His comment made me think about why such a skilled person would not use a grinder to sharpen a knife. He had a knack for responding in ways that were respectful, not derogatory.
Those skills served him well in his role as director of Neighborhood House, which was located in a depressed area of Richmond, California. Neighborhood House offered the community safe ways to come together. Red often mentioned finding knives on the ground outside the building in the morning, evidence of a fight the night before. He was a respected director and peacemaker.
He was also a creative problem solver. He told a group of us kids a story about helping with recovery work in Poland after World War II. He had been driving a truck up an incline where a closed gate existed. I believe the truck lacked a working hand brake, so Red secured the steering wheel, put the truck in its lowest gear, set the hand throttle for slow movement, jumped out of the moving truck, ran ahead to open the gate, and then after the truck passed through, closed the gate, and caught up with the truck. We kids were impressed!
Living next door to Red as I grew up, I had the opportunity to observe his marriage up close. I saw traits in his relationship with Madeleine that my own parents lacked. By that time, I was old enough to recognize that some marriages had vitality, and some did not. I decided I wanted to be more like Red when I got to that point in my life.
I admired the way he participated in all aspects of running his household, which was something my dad – like many husbands of that time – did not do. Even as a teenager, I realized that I wanted to share at least equally in the housework of my future family. Certainly, observing how Red and Madeleine worked together opened my eyes to what makes for a good marriage.
Madeleine’s death in 1993, after forty-six years of marriage with Red, was a blow to him. During this time, he dropped his nickname and began using his given name, Edwin. He also became close to Elspeth Benton, who had connections with the intentional community of Monan’s Rill in Santa Rosa, California, which Edwin had helped to found. He and Elspeth married in 2000. They had a dozen rich years together.
I believe the pinnacle of fun with Edwin came on his 90th birthday, when he arranged for a party at a community venue big enough to hold all his friends. Dozens of people went to the microphone – people connected to the various organizations Edwin had served and the various causes he had championed – and shared the ways that Edwin had touched their lives and how much they admired him. Each of us had been invited ahead of time to write a page of reminiscences for a memory book.
Edwin confided to me afterward, “Since I won’t physically be attending my memorial service, I really wanted to see old friends and hear what they have to say. The birthday party was a fun substitute.” It certainly was.
Two years later, Edwin suffered a debilitating stroke. When the news reached me, I drove down to see him at Friends House in Santa Rosa. He could hear me, but not see me, and his tears flowed. For me, it was a confirmation, but not a conclusion, of a special connection that had grown stronger over many years. Shortly after that visit, Edwin said goodbye to life by voluntarily refusing to eat or drink any more.
Edwin had once remarked that he was sorry he couldn’t leave the world in better shape than it was when he came into it. But I think he did leave the world in better shape – by turning his loving attention fully toward everything and everyone he encountered. Thank you, Red. Thank you, Edwin. ~~~
John Etter is a member of the Eugene Meeting (NPYM) who lives in Portland. A retired landscape architect, he stays active by serving on the Board of the Wellsprings Friends School and on other Friends committees, attending symphony concerts, and baking pies for his appreciative friends and family.