Lasting Memories

Robert Alexander Hemmes
1925-March 21, 2006
Sonoma, California

Robert Alexander Hemmes, one of the first Menlo Park residents to adopt and improve San Francisquito Creek, died peacefully in Sonoma March 21 after a series of illnesses. He was 81.

Mr. Hemmes was best known locally after he retired and lived for 15 years on Creek Drive in Menlo Park. There he joined the late Ira Bonde, gardening guru Albert Wilson, and other neighbors in trying to clean and preserve the creek. Their efforts took root and have grown through the years into the Watershed Council and Joint Powers Authority for the creek.

"He was one of the key people who pumped up the early effort to improve the creek as a community resource," wrote Jim Johnson, the creek's former streamkeeper, from his retirement in India.

Mr. Hemmes grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Cal Tech and later graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. He earned a master's degree degree from MIT, and a Ph.D. from Stanford in industrial engineering, with focus on fluid dynamics, programming, budgeting and decision-making.

Mr. Hemmes taught these subjects at several universities, including George Washington and Stanford, according to his wife, Adelaide Gore.

After living in Menlo Park between 1965 and 1969, Ms. Gore said, Mr. Hemmes went to Washington, D.C., where he was assistant administrator for research, demonstration and development at the U.S. Department of Transportation. In Washington, Mr. Hemmes helped develop futuristic transportation projects, such as dial-a-ride systems for the elderly and handicapped, people movers, and air-cushioned rail cars. He also helped BART fix its computers.

Retiring to Menlo Park in 1985, Mr. Hemmes was known to neighbors as a bright man with a great sense of humor who was interested in many things, and kept dogs.

Neighbor Phyllis Van De Mark remembers Mr. Hemmes had an old dog he used to walk around the neighborhood in a baby carriage. "He was just a very nice person," she said. Living on Creek Drive in 1985, Ms. Gore said, they found the homeless living in and around the creek created troubles for the creek and the neighbors, Ms. Gore recalled. "They polluted the creek. It really was a big problem," she said.

The Hemmes sold their Menlo Park house about 1999 and moved to Sonoma. "He missed Menlo Park desperately," Ms. Gore said.

Mr. Hemmes is survived by Ms. Gore, daughter Linda Griffith of Los Angeles, daughter Keira Alexandra of Brooklyn, son Robert Hemmes Jr. of Baltimore, and two grandsons.