John Holmes Gertridge
A memorial service for John Holmes Gertridge, a former Menlo Park City Council member, is set for 11 a.m. Monday, May 8, at the Church of the Nativity, 210 Oak Grove Ave. in Menlo Park.Mr. Gertridge died at his home in Menlo Park surrounded by his family on April 24. He was 83.
He served on the Menlo Park City Council and was a former president of the Menlo Park Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club.
A founding board member of the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, he also served on the boards of Menlo School and the San Mateo Council for Boy Scouts of America.
Family members said Mr. Gertridge was a natural athlete, and an accomplished fly fisherman, body surfer and hack golfer. He was inducted into the Menlo School Athletic Hall of Fame and served as a docent for the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame.
Born in San Francisco, Mr. Gertridge spent most of his childhood in Los Gatos. He attended Lakeside School in Seattle and then Menlo School in Atherton.
He entered Stanford University with the class of 1944, but graduated with the class of 1946, after a stint in the Naval Air Transport Service in the South Pacific during World War II. While at Stanford, he lettered in track and soccer, and was a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity.
He married Virginia Hork of Napa, a Western Airlines stewardess, at the Carmel Mission in 1950.
In 1953, Mr. Gertridge joined Calso Water Co. and served as its president for many years. He later became president of Allied Van Lines Palo Alto Transfer & Storage and finished his career at Menlo School and College as director of development.
Mr. Gertridge is survived by his wife, Virginia; his children, John “Jay” Gertridge Jr. of Menlo Park, Janet Zehm of Pacific Grove, Dick Gertridge of Palo Alto and Gigi Noa of San Francisco; and six grandchildren.
The family prefers memorial donations be made to the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula, Pathways Hospice Foundation, or a favorite charity.
Carolyn Burden
A memorial service will be held Saturday, May 13, at 2 p.m. at the Ladera Community Church, 3300 Alpine Road in Portola Valley, for Carolyn Burden.Ms. Burden, 79, a longtime Portola Valley resident, died at home April 15, surrounded by family members. She had been receiving kidney dialysis treatments for more than a year.
Ms. Burden was born in El Centro and spent her early life in and around Holtville. She was a graduate of Pomona College. After moving to Northern California in 1961, she became involved in what was then Creative Initiative and later, Beyond War, and the Foundation for Global Community.
She believed in the need to protect the environment and all life on the planet, and devoted her life to that effort, say family members. She will be remembered as a woman of great style and grace, who loved music, and all humanity, say family members.
She is survived by her husband of 57 years, James Burden; two sons, Fritz Burden of Walnut Creek and Mark Burden of San Francisco; a daughter, Sue Burden-Dickman of Eugene, Oregon; and five grandchildren.
Memorials may be sent to Hooked on Nature. Checks should be made out to the Foundation for Global Community, 222 High St., Palo Alto 94301, with designation for “Hooked on Nature.”
William Hibbard Dana
William Hibbard Dana, a retired intellectual property law attorney and executive, died April 20 at his home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, following a long illness. He was 76.Born in Albany, New York, and raised in Rochester, he attended Monroe High School. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a law degree from Cornell University. He earned a master’s degree in law from George Washington University Law School.
Mr. Dana served as a lieutenant in the Office of Naval Intelligence at the Pentagon during the Korean War, and began his legal career in 1957 as a patent attorney at Corning Glass Works. He became vice president and secretary of Corning International, and played a major role in Corning’s overseas operations, his family said. He served as secretary and general counsel for Signetics Inc. then a subsidiary of Corning.
In 1990, he became an independent legal consultant and general counsel for Lam Research Inc. in Fremont, and served on the board of directors of Alphatec Technologies Inc. of Bangkok, where he also served as legal counsel.
In 1974, Mr. Dana and his family moved to Atherton, where they lived for 25 years. In 1999, he retired to Duxbury.
Mr. Dana was a founding member of the Peninsula Association of General Counsel, a life fellow of the American Bar Association, and a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Menlo Circus Club.
He was senior warden of St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Menlo Park, and was active in the Palo Alto Rotary Club, Friends of Filoli and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.
In addition to his wife of 45 years, Anne Stewart Dana, he is survived by four children: Charles Dana of Toledo, Ohio; Catherine Dana Pouschine of New York City; Elizabeth Dana Smith of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and William H. Dana Jr. of San Francisco. He is also survived by nine grandchildren.
A memorial service is set for May 20 at St. John the Evangelist Church in Duxbury. The family prefers memorial donations be made to the Family Service Agency of San Mateo County, 24 2nd Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401-3828.
Lillian Ruth Powers Krause
Lillian Ruth Powers Krause, a resident of Menlo Park during the 1950s, died unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage February 20 at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. She was 74.Ms. Krause was born and raised in San Jose, and had been a resident of Los Altos since 1959.
She participated in Menlo Park Presbyterian, the Friends of Stanford Memorial Church and the Woodside Village Church.
She is survived by her husband of 54 years, Lloyd Krause, and two children, Martha Lynn and Peter Lloyd.
Change of plans: Research campus to leave Menlo Park, make way for more housingJune 12, 2026 6:46 pm
