PHELPS, WICKHAM, SHOEMAKER

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Sunday, January 01, 2012 at 08:07:32 :

Independent Journal
May 12, 1978
Page 4

JAMES B. PHELPS

Private family services were held today for James B. Phelps, a Sausalito native and a member of a prominent Southern Marin family.

Phelps, 82, died Wednesday in Mill Valley.

He was born in his grandparents’ home on Water Street, now Bridgeway, in Sausalito. His grandfather, Edward Shoemaker, was the superintendent of the North Pacific Coast Line, the railroad which ran out of Sausalito. His father, Charles, drove a stagecoach out of San Quentin and later followed a career in railroading, including time as an engineer on the Northwestern Pacific’s commuter trains.

James Phelps was president of the Johnson & Locke Mercantile Co., a San Francisco food brokerage firm, until he retired in 1961. He served in the Army in France and England during World War I. He was a member of the Mill Valley School District board for eight years in the 1930s.

Phelps served as the head of the draft board in Southern Marin during World War II. He was a life member of the Mill Valley American Legion Post. He was also a member of the Commercial and Olympic clubs in San Francisco and the Sons in Retirement Society in Marin.

He married his wife, Carolyne, on March 10, 1921. Since 1928, the couple had lived in a house on Walnut Avenue in Mill Valley.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Carolyne Wickham, the wife of former Mill Valley Mayor George Wickham; a brother, George Phelps of New Mexico, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.