Lasting Memories

Avery William Rogers
Nov. 8, 1924-June 14, 2011
Menlo Park, California

Avery Rogers, a 56-year resident of Menlo Park, died June 14, 2011. He was born Nov. 8, 1924 in Paso Robles, CA. He grew up on a golf course with older parents, Bessie Alice who hailed from a Mayflower family in New England, and William who came from England as a youth to work as a singing maitre de, golf pro, and later grocery store owner in Berkeley. Avery, their only child, served right out of Berkeley High in the Pacific Theater in World War 11, and graduated UC Berkeley. Afterwards he joined the US Survey and became its Western Regional Management Officer until his retirement in 1986. There he helped minorities and women advance in federal service. He loved to tell stories, teach grandsons Brett and Daniel to golf, and helped his daughter Lynn create his WW 11 Story of Service movie and interview now housed in the WW11 memorial in Washington D.C. He had married the late Lorraine Wood in the 1940s, Irene Jimenez in the 1980s and they attended charity golf tournaments to benefit autistic youth. His children, author Lynn Rogers, political activist Diane Rogers Greenwood and the late Silicon Valley Tall Club President, David Rogers, have remembered him as a gentle, hands on dad, driving our mother Lorraine and ourselves in our 50 Chevy more than once across the county when he served in the Interior Department in Virginia. He is also honored by his sons and daughter-in-laws Douglas Michael Flautt, Michael Griffin Greenwood, Julie Ostrander Rogers and the late Joseph Haddox. He leaves a living legacy in his grandchildren, lovely autistic poster Vanessa Michelle Flautt who helps with nonprofit mailings; San Francisco State literature instructor Megan Althea Flautt, businessmen Brett Avery Greenwood of Santa Barbara and Nicholas Griffin Greenwood of Mission Viejo California, editor Kevin Greenwood of Los Angeles and sports figure Daniel Rogers. His natural family fought hard to uphold our loved one's rights to share time with us, his beloved Rogers family, even as he declined; we know that his love for us, as Presbyterian mystic Edgar Cayce stated, "goes far beyond what we call the grave."