Christina Dewey
Christina P. Dewey passed away peacefully on the morning of February 3, 2018, with her sons Bosworth and David Dewey at her bedside.
Tina was born in San Francisco on April 22, 1925, and spent her early grammar school years in Burlingame. Her father, Southall Pfund, was an attorney at Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in San Francisco, as well as a sheep and cattle rancher in Pope Valley, California. Her mother, Christine Howells Pfund, grew up in a musical family on Golden Gate Avenue on Belvedere island in the early 1900s. The house was built by Tina's grandfather Julius Howells, a hydropower engineer who built dams throughout California for Great Western Power and assisted with road construction on the island. Tina moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1935 with her mother and her sisters, Constance and Lucy, while her father was employed as a mining lawyer.
Returning to California, Tina graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, before attending University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1947 in economics. While at Berkeley, she was politically active in student government. There she also met her future husband, Ralph Dewey, a business major and a nationally ranked 2-mile track star.
Tina and Ralph married in 1947 and in 1951 moved from Berkeley to an apartment in Belvedere over the Belvedere Land Company offices. In 1950 they had bought a lot on Leeward Road, where they built a house designed by her brother-in-law, Roy Starbird. Tina was a professional flutist, teaching and performed throughout Marin, including at the Belvedere Community Center. Out of these modest performances grew the Marin Symphony. Tina Dewey, along with Bernice Snyder of Belvedere, Jean Mattos McGuire of Mill Valley, and Anne Oppenheimer began preparations for the first Marin Symphony concert, held at Tam High School. Subsequently the Marin Symphony moved to the Marin Catholic auditorium until the early 1970s and the opening of the Marin Civic Center auditorium.
Tina was active locally in Belvedere and Southern Marin: She was a member of the Christian Science Church, helped to support the founding of the Tiburon Peninsula Club, and founded a music and tutoring program in Marin City.
In 1970, the family moved to Washington, D.C., when Ralph took over the Pacifica Gas and Electric Co. Government Affairs office. There Tina continued her volunteer work, tutoring and counseling in some of the toughest inner-city schools.
After a divorce from Ralph in 1976, Tina received a masters in economics from Georgetown University. After working as an economic consultant for SRI and Felix Rohatyn, she passed the foreign-service exam and entered the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in 1980. She began her foreign service in Kingston, Jamaica, after which she was posted in Montreal, Canada. She finished her short diplomatic career working on several internationals treaties in Washington.
Tina's lifelong interests include the Marin Symphony, the World Affairs Council, Thursday Musical Club, the Commonwealth Club, Asian art, geopolitics, and family history.
Tina is survived by her sons, Ralph Bosworth Dewey Jr. of Washington, D.C., and David S. Dewey of Rancho Mirage, Calif.; daughter-in-law Elizabeth Barratt-Brown; grandson Barratt Dewey; and granddaughter Eliza Dewey.