Box 3, Folder 50 – General Speeches
April 20, 1988 – Wells Fargo Bank International Advisory Council, San Francisco, CA
4/20/88, Typewritten copy of speech. It is very much the same as that given on this subject November 1, 1993, and is not repeated here.
4/20/88, Copies of two earlier drafts of speech, one with handwritten notations by Hewlett which were incorporated in the final text.
4/15/88, Typewritten note with information from Stanford engineering library concerning Leonard Fuller of Federal, and Herdun Pratt of Mackay. It says the two companies merged in 1928 with the International Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Box 3, Folder 51 – General Speeches
August 17, 1988 – John May Memorial, San Francisco, CA
8/17/88, Copy of typewritten text of speech
Hewlett says he first learned of John May via his own mother who had gone to a Century Club luncheon where May spoke. Mrs. Hewlett was very impressed by May and the community foundation principle he presented. Some years later Hewlett was asked to join the San Francisco Foundation as a member of the Distribution Committee. John May was the Executive Director of the Foundation.
Hewlett says he served in that capacity from 1962 to 1970, and that “It was one of the experiences I cherished the most. Learning how to give away money is not easy, but John was a good teacher.”
Hewlett tells how, in the mid-60s he and his wife, Flora, set up a family foundation. “Initially,” he says, “it was a very small operation that we operated out of our back pocket.” When May retired from the San Francisco Foundation in 1973, they asked him to become the first director of their family foundation. He served in that capacity for several years and Hewlett describes how “The structure he set up, and the philosophical approach that he established during the period that he was director was exactly what we needed and are still follow[ing] today.”
Hewlett describes John May’s work with the San Francisco Foundation in some detail, telling how his work there “was a model that is now followed in a number of [communities around the Bay Area.]”
Hewlett closes saying “If John is in heaven and looking down, as I know he is, he must derive great satisfaction by what he sees. One form of immorality comes from the fact that you are remembered in the hearts and minds of men; that the world is a better place for you having lived. John certainly meets these conditions. Unfortunately, too few of the beneficiaries of John’s genius ever knew of the real benefactors, but those of us here today do know and we say, ‘Thank you, John May.’”
7/14/88, Typewritten paper, probably prepared by Mollie Yoshizumi, Hewlett’s secretary, containing factual data about John May.
7/14/88, Copy of a letter to John May’s widow, Jean May, from Hewlett saying he had been away for two weeks and had learned of John’s death upon his return. He says “John was a wonderful person and the contributions he made to the Foundation World were extraordinary. He changed the concept of a Community Foundation. If that was not enough, he set the William and flora Hewlett foundation on course that it still basically follows today.”
8/8/88, Handwritten note to Hewlett from Jean May thanking him for his “kind and sympathetic words,”
8/12/88, Copy of a FAX from Tom Silk, attorney, to Mollie Yoshizumi, sending various obituaries that had been printed about John May. He mentions more material may arrive from Henry May.
8//15/88, Copy of a note from Henry May [brother] to Tom Silk transmitting more biographical information.
11/4/88, Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Hewlett from Robert M. Fisher sending the 1988 Annual report of the San Francisco Foundation.
