Jack Arthur Underhill

Jack was born in Healdsburg, California on May 8, 1932, the younger of two children born to Harry Arthur & Marie Lucile (Kiesel) Underhill. He spent his early years on a sheep ranch in the wine country of Northern California before his family moved to the San Joaquin Valley when he was seven years old. He graduated from Hanford Joint Union High School in 1950.

After completing a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California at Berkeley in 1954, Jack enlisted in the United States Army, attending the Army Language School at Monterey to study Russian. He was deployed to West Germany, where he served in military intelligence.

When Jack was discharged from the Army, he used the G.I. Bill to get a master’s degree from Columbia University. From there, he pursued a career in the federal government, eventually securing a job at the Office of Emergency Planning in the nation’s capital. Not long after, he met his wife Jane through a mutual friend, and they were married in 1961.

Jack had a distinguished career, spending 33 out of his 42 years in federal service at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he served as a research analyst working on community planning. As part of this work, he both hosted and was hosted by Soviet delegations throughout the 1980s, traveling multiple times to the Soviet Union, where he toured widely. In the course of his career, he completed another master’s from Harvard University (1969) and defended his PhD in Public Policy at George Mason University (1994). He retired from federal service in 1997.

Despite Jack’s impressive educational and career accomplishments, he was as active following his retirement as before it. He was always a man of action, applying himself to community service, intellectual endeavors, and artistic pursuits with equal enthusiasm. He was both chairman and a long-time member of the board of trustees at Annandale United Methodist Church and led a seminar at the church for over ten years, delivering papers on issues of faith and justice. He was on the board of directors for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason, where he was also a student until his death. Nearly every year, he wrote and presented a paper on poverty-related topics at the national conference of the American Society for Public Administration. He was also a community leader for Holmes Run Acres in Falls Church, where he lived for over sixty years.

Jack was insatiably curious about the world and a voracious reader. He was fascinated by history, biography, religion, public policy, and science. He also wrote hundreds of poems and loved photography, painting, and woodworking. He traveled to dozens of countries with his wife during his retirement. He would sometimes comment that, out of all that he accomplished, he was most proud of his three wonderful children.

Jack is survived by his loving and devoted wife of 63 years, Jane (Russell) Underhill; children Jeannie (Jude) Samson of Austin, TX and Marie (David) Pace of Murrysville, PA; daughter-in-law Adollaya Underhill; grandchildren Shanti, David, Asha, Aliya, Benjamin, Lawson, Nigel, Sara, and Roséya; and great-grandchildren June and Grant. He is preceded in death by his parents, his sister Jean (Bob) Ross, and his son Robert.