John Wallace Neumayr

Called "Jack" by his family and friends, John Wallace Neumayr was born on May 11, 1930, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His parents were George Hugo Neumayr and Evelyn Wallace, who came from German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. He was the second oldest child and had two brothers, Robert and Thomas, and a sister, Mary Anne.

Dr. Neumayr's father, born in Parkston, South Dakota, was a medical doctor whose career took the family from the Midwest to San Francisco, with stops in Seattle and Yosemite National Park. Dr. Neumayr had fond and vivid memories of spending part of his youth in Yosemite, an experience that sparked his lifelong love of natural history, the national parks, and botany.

Around the age of 10, he and his family moved to San Francisco, where he became a track and basketball star at St. Ignatius High School. A passion for athletics defined his life. He loved playing and following sports. (In middle age, he discovered the joy of golf and played it until the end of his life.) But he also, as a teenager, developed an usually keen interest in philosophy and the classics. He once recalled spending long afternoons in Golden Gate Park with his basketball teammate, Cappy Lavin (later a prominent Bay Area educator), "talking literature and philosophy".

In 1948, Dr. Neumayr's athletic talents led him to Notre Dame where he received a full basketball scholarship. He played under the famed coach Moose Krause. A true student athlete, Dr. Neumayr deepened his faith and interest in the great books at Notre Dame. Later in life, he often recalled his time there and the many fabled characters and friends he met. After completing his undergraduate degree, he continued graduate studies at Notre Dame, coached its freshman basketball team, and considered a career in coaching. From his days in the Bay Area, he knew the legendary UC Berkeley coach Pete Newell and traded letters with him on basketball strategy.

Dr. Neumayr considered other careers and vocations. After returning to San Francisco in the mid-1950s, he pursued studies in law. Indicating the serious Catholic spirituality that would characterize his life, he also during this period considered a vocation to the priesthood by entering a Dominican novitiate.

Finally, he decided to pursue graduate studies in philosophy. Through his sister, he met Ronald McArthur, one of her professors at the San Francisco College for Women. They became friends, meeting often to play tennis and to discuss philosophy and the liberal arts. Dr. McArthur urged him to pursue a doctorate in philosophy at his alma mater, the University of Laval in Quebec City, Canada, where the celebrated Thomist Charles De Koninck, whose fidelity to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas left a lasting influence on him. Dr. Neumayr received his doctorate from the University of Laval in 1962. He did his doctoral thesis on "Plutarch, Aristotle, and the Nature of Poetry".

His first teaching job was at the University of Santa Clara. While there he met on a blind date Bridget Cameron, a graduate of Oxford University who attended UC Berkeley on a Fulbright scholarship and was pursuing a doctorate in American literature. The two married in 1963 and had seven children: four girls and three boys.

In 1966, he left Santa Clara for St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, where Ronald McArthur taught. Catholic higher education was in a state of intense crisis at that time, and it became clear to Dr. McArthur, Dr. Neumayr, their fellow St. Mary's colleague Marc Berquist, and others that Catholic colleges across the country were abandoning the Catholic intellectual tradition and the central role St. Thomas Aquinas played in it. They concluded that only the creation of a new Catholic college could counter this crisis.

Out of that conviction came Thomas Aquinas College in Southern California. Dr. Neumayr helped shape its founding and governing document, "A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education". The school opened its doors in 1971 and is now widely regarded as one of the best Catholic colleges in America.

Dr. Neumayr was the college's first dean, serving in that position until 1981. He taught a wide range of courses at the college until the age of 86. He served on its Board of Governors to the end of his life. In 2012, Thomas Aquinas College awarded him its highest honor, the St. Thomas Aquinas Medallion, "for the wisdom and care that he brought to our founding" and his decades of teaching at the school and serving on its board.

Dr. Neumayr dedicated much of his life to contemplation and passing "the fruits" of that reflection to students, as St. Thomas Aquinas exhorted teachers to do. Many of his students went on to religious life and graduate studies in philosophy and theology. Students appreciated his gentle teaching style, sense of humor, broad interests, and quick wit.

He loved to travel America and the world, from Alaska to Eastern Europe (before the end of the Cold War). He enjoyed literature and the arts, studying maps and doing the daily crossword puzzle. He read and discussed history with enthusiasm, followed politics closely, listened to classical music, and regaled guests with jokes and stories while making martinis for them.

But above all, he was a devoted husband, father and man of deep Catholic faith -- a daily communicant for much of his life, a dedicated pro-lifer, and a member of the Third Order Dominicans. He died much as he lived -- in contemplation and prayer, after a day of watching fireworks and sports in the company of his family on Independence Day. In the hour before his death, he was working, as he had for the last year, on a long essay clarifying Thomas Aquinas College's adopted motto "Faith Seeking Understanding" taken from St. Anselm, including reflection on the Beatific Vision. He died late at night on July 4th, passing away just moments before he and his wife were to begin a rosary.

He is survived by his wife of nearly 59 years, Bridget, his brother Robert Neumayr, his seven children; Mary Bridget Neumayr, John J. Neumayr, Catherine Neumayr, Thomas Neumayr and his wife Celia, George Neumayr, Jane Nemcova and her husband Ondrej Nemec, and Anne Braden and her husband Brooks, and twelve grandchildren: John ("Jack"), Joan ("Jojo"), Thomas ("Tommy"), Alexander ("Sasha"), Adelaide ("Heidi"), Evelyn, Madeline, Luke, Ivan ("Von"), Bede, Vitus ("Vit"), and Basil.

The viewing will be from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm and the Rosary will be said at 4:00 pm on Sunday, July 24th, 2022. The Funeral Mass will be at 9:00 am on July 25, 2022. These events will be held at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity on the Thomas Aquinas College California campus. Following the Funeral Mass there will be a graveside service at the Santa Paula Cemetery, with a reception immediately following at Thomas Aquinas College.