Tawna Buchanan Farmer

People who knew Tawna Buchanan Farmer suspected they might never read her obituary because she was a devoted, impassioned and fearless mother, grandmother, political activist, wife, friend and sister who might just keep at it forever. Sadly, she passed away peacefully at UCSF on May 26th, 2026. Tawnie is survived by her husband, John; children, Ashley, Polly, Heddy and Johnny; and nine beloved grandchildren.

Tawnie was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on December 19th, 1942, where she was raised with her four brothers and sisters by Lorraine and Dallas Buchanan until her family moved to San Marino, California. Tirelessly finding ways to reach desired destinations was a prevalent theme in her life. Her mother told her she could not attend her boyfriend’s college until she’d given a distant campus a “college try.” While he attended Occidental College, she clocked in at UC Riverside for a year until transferring to Oxy to join him as she’d planned and spent her junior year in Madrid. She graduated in 1964 and began teaching kindergarten in San Francisco.

Tawnie and John Farmer married on February 13th, 1971, and raised their four children in Ross, where she was embedded in the fabric of the community. Her life in Ross involved friendships that would last a lifetime, fundraisers, carpools, gardening, dressing as a pregnant woman for Halloween after delivering her fourth child and supervising swimming children until 1988 when the Farmer family moved to London. Tawnie again threaded herself into the American School in London community and also became a student of the city itself. She attended art lectures, architecture walks and classes at museums, along with French and Italian classes. She and John proudly supported the arts in both California and Europe and are Lifetime Benefactors of England’s National Theatre. Additionally, she planned family vacations that served the purpose of educating her children about the world and its wide range of people and places on six continents. She and John regularly contributed to nonprofits that bolstered the lives of those in need and taught their own children to empathize with and seek to understand those from unfamiliar cultures.

After their youngest, Johnny, left for college, and their oldest, Ashley, and her husband, Ted, were starting a family in Kentfield, Tawnie and John slowly shifted their lives from London back to Marin, where they purchased a property in Tiburon to build a beach house large enough to host the growing clan. In 2006, Tawnie collaborated with an architect to design 36 Old Landing. For 20 years, the house has served as the family’s nest, a setting for board games, family dinners, dress-up, walks on the beach, Fourth of July celebrations, birthdays, butterfly releases, hot tub swims, lunches on the deck, canoeing and several significant gatherings and fundraisers for Democratic politicians.

Tawnie loved France, Greek salad, Islamic architecture, her Japanese garden, beaches, breezes through large windows, well-lit rooms, the New York Times crossword, Duke basketball, elephants, a well-made bed, the Warriors, cutting up peaches and strawberries for her grandchildren, underdogs, India, walking barefoot, watching her kids and grandkids play sports and perform on the stage, the Marin Farmers Market, recycling, finding ways to help people and collecting art from burgeoning artists. However, she was most passionate about her own family. Its 18 members felt her devotion and love regardless of their distance from her.

She was determined to show her children the world and see it for herself. When the time came for her to seek end-of-life care, she convinced an ambulance driver to transport her to UCSF without passing go, despite the fact that he was under strict orders to drive her to MarinHealth. That was Tawnie, a warrior who believed wholeheartedly in rising to the occasion and doing the right thing. She left behind family, friends and recipients of charitable donations who are certain she made the world a better place and truly enjoyed sharing it with her over the course of her lifetime.

In lieu of flowers, Tawnie’s family requests that contributions be made in Tawna Farmer’s memory to causes that were close to her heart: Akanksha Fund, UCSF and Britain’s National Theatre.