Heart of the Healdsburg Peace Movement is Stilled

Bob Boardman, a 20-plus year resident of Healdsburg and charter member of the Healdsburg Peace Project, passed away Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 at his home. Described by his friend Gary Goss as “the emotional center of the peace project – a big, loud, great guy,” Boardman was finally taken by cancer at the age of 65.

Boardman was a social worker in the county Child Protective Services prior to his retirement several years ago. At SRJC, he taught a course designed to help young people who were alone and about to enter the adult world.

There will be a at the Alexander Valley Community Hall.

He is survived by his wife, Laura Beach, who was also in social services, working as special education teacher for the severely disabled, and a member of the board in the 1990s. Both politically active since the 1960s, they met in Berkeley in the early 1980s through a mutual friend, and moved to Healdsburg in 1988, knowing no one, thinking it would be a good place to raise their children.

It was for his ardent anti-war views that Boardman was most visibly known in Healdsburg. He was a charter member of the Healdsburg Peace Project, which was revived in 2003 in response to the George Bush administration’s lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. At the community rallies, still held on Thursday nights on Healdsburg Avenue at the Plaza, he was frequent cheerleader (as the attached videos show).

But he was also a family man, soccer coach, scout leader and informal mentor to many. As Gary Goss said, in a tribute last night at the Healdsburg Peace Project’s screening of , he did not let politics determine his selection of friends.

Goss quoted Boardman as saying,  “Our politics have not changed since the 1960s, but we have diverse friends and I don’t care what my neighbor believes politically. We know many people who have little in common with our politics who show deep respect, kindness and compassion for life. And in many ways we have old fashioned values.” 

“And he loved The Big Lebowski, which he insisted on seeing regularly,” added Goss, to appreciative chuckles from the audience at the .

“One of the really remarkable things about Bob,” said Goss, “was the splendid family he had.” Their family was classically “blended,” with four children including their own mutual offspring, youngest son Robb. The others, all boys, include Antony (the oldest, who lives in Windsor), Ian (living in Sacramento) and Jesse (a Healdsburg resident). “Bob did a terrific job with those boys.”

But Boardman also had an impact on other school-age children in Healdsburg. Always politically to the left of center, he came to high school civics classes to play and sing Pete Seeger songs, exposing today’s students to the tradition of the troubadour of the working class. “He was quite the folk singer,” chuckled Goss.

“I learned more about passion from Bob than from anyone I have met,” said friend and columnist Shonnie Brown.  “He was simply the most passionate man about everything in his life––his politics, his wife, children and grandchildren, his community, his anti-war views and his love of people and especially children.”

Although he lived for several years with prostate cancer that metastasized, “He was riding a bicycle just four months ago,” recalled Goss. “He kept battling back.”

“He was the emotional center of the peace project,” said Goss. “A big, loud, great guy, bigger than life.”

Note: The writer wishes to thank Shonnie Brown, Gary Goss and Laura Beach for their support in preparing this article.

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