Jacquie Callihan
May 12, 1937 – August 15, 2024

Jacquie Callihan passed away peacefully on August 15, 2024. Beyond being the most caring wife to her husband of 65 years, Dale, she was a loving and generous mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, the deeply compassionate family matriarch.

A celebration of life will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, 2024 at the Veteran’s Memorial Building, 1426 Main Street, Fortuna.

Jacquie was a kindergarten teacher in the same classroom for 31 years at Ambrosini Elementary School in Fortuna. She later became principal and then was a frequent substitute teacher into her early eighties. Children loved and revered her. She believed in the dignity and preciousness of each child. Her focus on equality and bringing out the inherent talents of the children and grandchildren that she taught and raised has left an extraordinary legacy. In her own poetic words, “Attention, I do not always have enough to go around / But love is not measured by order or turn / Each child is the most precious of all God’s gifts / And loved wholeheartedly, equally they will know.”

Jacquie — Jacquelyn Jean McLeod — was born on May 12, 1937 at her Aunt Mina’s maternity home in Fortuna, the daughter of Bruce McLeod and Gertrude (Meisser) McLeod. She loved growing up with her sister Judy on McLeod’s Dairy Farm and delighted in saying that she drove the tractor at age five back and forth across the fields, with her dad throwing feed from the trailer and jumping back on the tractor to make each turn. After her mother died at a young age, Bruce married Jacquie’s second mother, Ruby (Biasca) McLeod, who with her seven sisters brought Jacquie into an exuberant family that she cherished throughout her life. A legion of McLeod and Biasca cousins remember being at the farm and in awe of Jacquie’s graceful beauty, intelligence and quiet strength. Even in later years, they would say that she seemed forever young.

Jacquie experienced some of her favorite years at Humboldt State University where she met her future husband Dale, the 1958 Associated Student Body President. Jacquie and Dale were both extremely active at the college where she held roles as Associated Women Students President and Head Song Queen, and was awarded “Outstanding Senior Woman.” Dale and Jacquie settled into the grocery business in Eureka owning the Food Center grocery store in the mid-sixties.

During this time, they had four children — Mike, Dana, Brenda and Lisa. Jacquie then started her 35-year career as a teacher and principal, and always had Dale’s support at work and at home, compassionate and ahead of his time in caring for her and his family without regard to traditional roles and expectations, just as she was ahead of her time in a dedicated teaching career while raising her four young children. She loved following the sports, academic, and musical achievements of her children and grandchildren. She and Dale were enduring spectators at Fortuna High for two generations of talented scholars and athletes.

Jacquie and Dale remembered their childhood outings in the redwoods warmly, and were thrilled to purchase a hilltop home in Fortuna in 1970 with Rohner Park’s redwood forest right out the back door. They enthusiastically agreed to have the historic cross on the hill moved to the family property when it could no longer be housed on city property. They later found a cozy cabin for the family in the hills of Southern Humboldt’s Phillipsville community in 1989 and loved spending weekends there sprucing up the place and creating a fun-filled sunny hideaway for their children and grandchildren and countless other friends and family.

In 1979, Jacquie and Dale loaded up the family for a first summer trip to Lake Tahoe and fell in love with the mountains and lake. After returning to Tahoe each summer for 20 years, they purchased and refurbished a home and property that became a memorable year-round destination. In recent years, they loved spending long stretches of time in Tahoe amidst the pines and firs, Alpine lakes and meadows, wildlife, and the pine cones and wildflowers that Jacquie treasured and collected.

Jacquie was a talented artist who made beautiful pottery vases and bowls for some 40 years, amassed a vast collection of her own photographs, some of them precious black and white photos she hand-developed in the late 1970s, made intricate baskets woven in Native American pine needle designs, and arranged dried plants and flowers into beautiful natural bouquets. Never short of industriousness and energy, she was also a fine baker and cook known for her pies and cakes and legendary for her cinnamon rolls and raspberry jam.

Jacquie loved the heritage and stories of family and place, her McLeod, Meisser and Biasca history in Fortuna, Rohnerville and Ferndale. She was fond of keeping the family lore and in recent years wrote family histories for each branch – both her’s and Dale’s – so that future generations would appreciate and remember their great legacy.

A lifelong member of Christian churches, Jacquie practiced her faith in the way she walked in the world and always contributed to supporting her church communities in some way whether teaching Sunday school, maintaining grounds, or filling the sanctuary with her beautiful flower arrangements. She disliked meanness or disharmony, instead embracing everyone with a warm, accepting spirit.

Jacquie is survived by her children and their spouses and partners Mike and Sue Callihan, Dana Callihan and David Panales, Brenda and Blaine Sigler, and Lisa and Eric Stockwell. She adored her grandchildren Patrick Callihan, Miles (Dylan) Callihan, Hillary (Calen) Chapman, Freya Marriott, Isolde (Ani) Callihan, Gareth Callihan, Shannon (Emily) Nomann, Kaitlyn (Jesse) Lambert, Claire Stockwell, and Collin Stockwell, and great-grandchildren Camden, Maxwell, June, and Tatum.

Jacquie was preceded in death by her husband Dale Callihan and her sister Judy McLeod Meadors Michelet. She was an extraordinary aunt to Judy’s children Tami, Kathy, and Teresa, and to Dale’s nephews and nieces, Cliff, Jarl, Eddie, John, Joe and Jeff (Viale) and to Diane, Linda and Janine (Cotton).

###