Farewell Byron Menendez 1923-2018 RIP

Byron Menendez (1923-2018) died peacefully in his sleep last Tuesday morning, Oct. 30th. He's dancing with the ancestors now. He lived in Yelapa from the early 70s through the mid 2000s, most recently in what is now known as Casa Flourish. I tucked him in the night before and he felt well and was in good spirits, talking about how he wanted to make sure to vote the following week.

Born in the 1923 in the Bronx, Byron's parents were early-twentieth-century European immigrants: José Fernández Menéndez from Pravia, Asturias, Spain (by way of Cuba), and Rose Stolper from Riga, Latvia, both hat-makers and union activists. He attended Durlach School in Manhattan on scholarship and spent summers at Pioneer Youth Camp in Rifton, NY where his sisters worked as counselors. Working in his uncle's grocery store in his youth and later in shipyards in Connecticut, Byron enlisted in the US Army during WWII. He took part in the Battle of the Bulge, earned a Purple Heart and was later taken prisoner by the Germans, spending the rest of the war as a POW in a Nazi prison camp. Back in NYC, Byron belonged to Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group and, marrying fellow hand-wrought jeweler Phyllis Gold, he opened a shop on West 4th St. in the Village. He moved to California in 1948 and eventually met and married jazz/folk singer Barbara Dane with whom he had 2 children, Pablo and Nina, and a stepson, Nicky Cahn. A long time resident of Berkeley, Byron was one of the area's original craftsmen and had a jewelry shop in several locations on Dwight Way in the 1950s and 60s. An avid fisherman, mushroom hunter and outdoorsman, Byron moved to Yelapa, Mexico in the early 1970s and lived there for over 30 years. He came back to the Bay Area in 2006, and lived just off Piedmont Ave (first on Monte Vista and then on Linda Ave.) where he spent his days playing the harmonica, tending his flower garden and aquarium and spending time with friends and family. He is survived by his daughter Nina (Oakland, CA) and his son Pablo (Havana, Cuba) as well as his ex-wife Barbara who also lives in Oakland.........................written by daughter, Nina