Final Salute

Robert Mehaffy
December 4, 1935 – January 26, 2022
Folsom, California – Robert (Bob) Eugene Mehaffy
Bob Mehaffy succumbed to pancreatic cancer at home with his loving wife, Carol, and other family members at his bedside.
Born in Stockton, CA, the second of four children and the only son of Robert Cecil and Martha Williams Mehaffy, Bob grew up on ranches near Stockton and, later, Placerville. Eager to leave the ranching life behind, he joined the U. S. Navy shortly after graduation from El Dorado High School, in Placerville.
After his service in the Navy Construction Battalion (“Seabees”), he returned to the Sacramento Area, where he enrolled in Sacramento City College followed by Sacramento State College (now California State University, Sacramento). At the latter college, he attained both BA and MA degrees.
In 1970, after a few years of teaching high school English in the Sacramento City School District, he obtained a position teaching English at American River College, where he spent the remainder of his career until his retirement in 1996.
While teaching English at ARC, he also partnered with two other English instructors on campus to write textbooks for English composition classes. Together, the threesome wrote and revised several editions for the various levels of freshman English, these textbooks assigned to numbers of students at American River College as well as throughout the U. S. As well as writing, Bob greatly enjoyed speaking at conferences around the country on the new approaches to teaching composition that these books introduced.
Bob also served as chairman of the English Department for many years.
His abiding passion, however, was bluewater sailing. After he purchased his first small sailboat in the early 1960s, he was never without a sailboat for more than a few months for the remainder of his life. He sailed his early boats not only in San Francisco Bay, where he moored them, but up and down the California Coast, and to Hawai’i and back as well.
Soon after embracing sailing, he also began writing magazine articles about his adventures on the water as well as about the sailing and upkeep of bluewater boats. These articles, illustrated by nautical photographs he had taken, were published by both local and national boating magazines.
One of the many endearing qualities about Bob was his generosity, manifested in many events of his daily life but no more so than in his eagerness to share his passion for sailing adventures with family, friends and colleagues. Several times throughout each school year, he planned a weekend sail day on San Francisco Bay to share with those colleagues who had professed an interest in sailing.
At American River College, he met his future wife, the former Carolyn (Carol) Jewett, also a faculty member of the English Department. Carol readily embraced the cruising life, and the couple spent virtually every weekend and all summer on either the Resolute or, in later years, the Carricklee.
After their retirement from the college in 1996-97, the couple sailed Carricklee, a Hardin 45 ketch, initially to Hawai’i, where they spent a year exploring all the islands in the Hawaiian Chain. Obtaining permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Mehaffys then sailed to Midway Atoll, near the northwestern extremity of the Hawaiian Chain, without exception the highlight of their cruising years.
Returning to Hawai’i, the Mehaffys readied Carricklee for the voyage back to the Continental U.S. by way of Puget Sound and then Alaska.
During their 23 years of continuous cruising (except for summers spent back in the States, out of the heat of the Tropics), they also sailed along the Pacific Coasts of Central and South America and then through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean, where they spent a few years before returning to cruise both the Pacific Coast and the Sea of Cortez, in Mexico.
During their years of cruising, the Mehaffys wrote scores of articles for boating magazines as well as three cruising books and spoke at numerous boating shows along the U.S. Pacific Coast.
In 2019, the Carricklee was moored in Mazatlan, Mexico, when the Mehaffys sold it after Bob’s cancer diagnosis.
All those who knew him will remember Bob for his exuberance for life generally. He had a constant twinkle in his eye that lit up the world of all those around him. He will be greatly missed by his family and his many friends.
Bob was preceded in death by two sisters, Aileen Nicolls and Florence Stevens. Survivors include his wife, Carol; sister Nola Stilwell; nieces Deborah Nicolls and Carrie Stilwell; nephews Randy Stevens and David Nicolls; a grand-niece and -nephew; step-daughter Kimberly DeArton; six step-grandchildren, and thirteen step-great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, his family suggests any who wish to express their respect and love for him do so with a donation in his name to the Marine Mammal Center, 2000 Bunker Rd., Sausalito, CA, 94965, or give.marinemammalcenter.org.