JOHN RENNER • 1961 - 2018 

 

John Renner was born in Yankton, South Dakota in 1961 to Tony and Anne Renner. This is also where he was raised. He was the youngest of five children, two of whom preceded him in death.  A brother, Mark, drowned prior to John’s birth, and an older sister, Char, passed away from breast cancer in her early 40’s. John is survived by two sisters: Barbara Levenson and her husband Harvey, who reside in Pismo Beach, California; and Ruth Kline and her husband Todd, who reside in Hastings, Nebraska.  Also surviving are nieces and nephews: Jenny Morgan Warner and husband Kevin, Matt Morgan and wife Lynn, Scott and Courtney Kline, Burke and Andrea Kline, Brynn Kline, Mark and Jessica Reyes Levenson, and Damien Levenson. John was a “guncle” to Vanessa Alvarado and Brianna Levenson.

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John graduated with an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University and a graduate degree in computer science from Ohio State University. After college, John was employed by Adobe Systems for nineteen years, where he developed and supported typefaces. He held two patents for typefaces he developed and co-developed. 

 

John was bright, intelligent, compassionate, generous, and good humored; he was a rare individual who had a balance of holistic and linear capabilities often identified with “right-brain” and “left-brain” thinking. John was an artist who worked in glass and neon. He had a natural talent in typography and calligraphy and he understood imagery for communication. His passion was photography and he collected specific genres of photography for most of his adult life. 

 

John met Mark Hamilton in 1987. They lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of their lives together. They were deeply committed to legal rights for lesbian, gay, and bisexual men and women. They married at San Francisco City Hall in 2004, when the city there made those marriages legal; a photo of the ceremony was published in People magazine. 

 

John and Mark were world travelers. They visited five continents and spent time on cruises, on beaches, and on tours, whether they were in the Galápagos Islands or on safari in Africa. On one trip, John was introduced to a trapeze; he started taking lessons and progressed rapidly in his trapeze skills. 

 

When the couple moved to Palm Springs, John began volunteering at the Palm Springs Art Museum. He found a lot of satisfaction in his work there.

 

John and Mark divorced amicably in 2015 and remained friends. John continued to travel and to volunteer at the museum. He met Tom Lane in October 2017 and they developed a loving relationship. John and Tom traveled several times together. They and several friends took a wonderful cruise from Portugal to Rome in September 2018.  

 

John and Tom and two friends were in a car accident on November 10, 2018. John died; Tom survived but was severely injured. 

 

A memorial Celebration of Life  was held at the Palm Desert campus of the Palm Springs Art Museum on December 8, 2018 to honor John and his memory. About two hundred people from the local area and from around the country attended. There was a family dinner afterward. On the next day in a private ceremony, John’s ashes were scattered according to his wishes, on the mountain behind the home in Palm Springs that he had shared with Mark Hamilton. Mark and his husband, Juan Francisco Contreras-Gomez, hosted both the dinner and the scattering of ashes. 

 

The photographs on the next pages depict the events of John’s memorial weekend. John’s nephew, Damien Levenson, produced a drone video depicting the scattering of John’s ashes.

 

We invite your comments on the In Remembrance page of this site.

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Your comments are invited on the “IN REMEMBRANCE” page.

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