William Bradford Morrish

Bill was born to Ken and Marian Thomas Morrish on June 6, 1931 in Berkeley, California. The family moved to the country in Orinda in 1937 for the drier climate, and Bill and his brother Tom enjoyed a life outdoors, bringing home snakes and other creatures which their patient mother tolerated as she discovered them ranging throughout their home. Family summers were spent in the high Sierras at the family Wright’s Lake cabin, where Bill and Tom spent weeks on end fishing, hiking and roaming the granite and forests with friends and Thomas cousins while Ken commuted from the Bay Area on the weekends.

Bill graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette in 1949, where he earned letters in track and swimming. It was at this time in his life that Bill began his adult life of adventure, becoming an Eagle Scout and working summers in lumber camps run by Meadow Valley and Westside Lumber Companies.

Bill attended his father’s Alma Mater, UC Berkeley, where he made many lifelong friends as a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and member of the ROTC. Summer adventures took him across Europe with brother Tom and running the flooded Rogue River in an open canoe in 1952.

After graduating from Berkely in 1954, Bill went to work on the Alaska Railroad, fishing his way home from Alaska before reporting for Officer Training School to Aberdeen Proving Ground. He served his country in Korea from 1954 to 1956 in the 8th army headquarters inspection team before taking his discharge in Korea and traveling through Asia before returning home via steamer. He graduated from Stanford business school in 1959, and began his career with Hexcel, for which he had worked during several previous summers.

In 1962, shortly after returning from a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters of British Columbia, Bill agreed to a blind date with Eva Marie von Arnim, a visitor to the US who had every intention of returning to her native Germany in a few short months. Bill proposed three weeks later and they were married within two months. Thus began Bill’s most meaningful adventure, his deeply bonded marriage to Eva Marie, his heart’s partner. Moving for a few years across the country to New York and Chicago, Bill and Eva Marie returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, welcoming daughter Bettina in 1964 and son Ken in 1966 at Alta Bates Hospital, where Bill himself had been born.

Bill was simultaneously committed to excellence and adventure. While leading First American Title from 1964 to his retirement 1994, he grew the company and led his family on hiking, rafting and skiing adventures around the world. Retirement found him building a mountain cabin in Oregon, hosting all-family vacations in Germany, Mexico and Oregon, trekking in Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh and India, and fishing throughout the US and Canada with friends and son Ken.

Bill was a natural leader to whom many educational, civic and environmental organizations turned in the course of his life. Like his father and grandfather, Bill was a long-time member of San Francisco’s Bohemian Club’s Puma Camp. He served as trustee for the College Preparatory School, Bishop O’Dowd School, UC Berkeley, Northern Lights School, and the National Outdoor Leadership School. In his East Bay community, he was a member of the 100 Club, Oakland Chamber of Commerce, Oakland Coliseum Commission, and OCCUR. In his later years, he gained great satisfaction serving on the board of the Southern Oregon Land Conservancy, which granted him its Conservation Award.

While Bill was certainly a man of deeds and action, he delighted in them without seeking recognition. He had an unflinching dedication to executing his original plan, whether it was ushering his company through troubled times or re-entering his capsized kayak in the middle of Lava Falls, the largest rapid on the Grand Canyon. Emotionally reserved, Bill was also known for his wry wit. He loved to write and deliver a speech, and followed in his father Ken’s steps of writing poems and “jingles” for family occasions and rewriting folk songs in honor of the annual friends Christmas tree hunting weekend. A man who never raised his voice in anger, he trumpeted into the telephone at a volume that made many question the need for the device at all. Intentional in all he did, he had an unconscious habit of whistling Don McClean’s “Vincent” under his breath when he was truly relaxed. To the end, he was most unguarded and at peace when he was connected to the water, fishing rod in hand, the prospect of sharing a bourbon and big fish story with Eva Marie waiting for him at the end of the day.

Bill was a man of great certainty. He lived his long, adventurous life on his own terms, and he left it knowing that he had left few avenues of interest unexplored. His family will miss him while finding comfort in the memories and stories he shared and the lives he has inspired us to live.

Bill is survived by his wife Eva Marie, brother Tom (Marilyn), son Kendric (Mia), daughter Bettina, grandchildren Nathaniel “Nate” Morrish-Harling (Emery), Nicholas “Nick” Harling, William “Max” Morrish and Lilian “Lilli” Rose Morrish.