In Memoriam

John Emory Ferrebee

April 19, 1943 – December 19, 2021

John Emory Ferrebee, of Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii, died peacefully in his sleep at home on Sunday, December 19, 2021. His son, Samuda, was at his side. The cause of death was Parkinson’s Disease, which had long affected him.

A son of Dr. Joseph Wiley and Juanita Sault Ferrebee, known to all as Salty, he was born in Boston, MA, on April 19, 1943. In 1948 he moved with his parents, brother, sister, horses and dogs to Cooperstown, where his father worked at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, researching and later developing the now universally used bone marrow transplant. John attended the Cooperstown Central School, and matriculated to the Fay School in Southborough, MA, and then to Millbrook School in Millbrook, NY, where he was captain of both the soccer and the tennis teams. He graduated in 1962 and went on to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder, during which time he opened a motorcycle shop and taught skiing at a local ski area.

In the early 1970s he and his partner, Marcia Hileman, moved to South America, where their son, Samuda John Hileman Ferrebee, was born on October 15, 1972. For several years John owned a sailboat and cruised the coasts of California and Mexico. He then moved to Rancho Santa Fe, CA, to care for his ailing father, who died November 14, 2001, and mother, who died January 22, 2004. He worked at the Santa Anita race track for several years, and at the same time became an avid and very successful day trader. He later moved to Hawaii to wind surf, meditate and continue his trading.

John Ferrebee is survived by his son, Samuda of Mckinleyville, CA, his sister, Anne Ferrebee Keith of Cooperstown, his brother, Peter Wiley Ferrebee of Old Lyme, CT, and his nieces, Alexandra Ferrebee Gehring of Spokane, WA, and Samantha Sault Gehring of Boulder, CO. His brother, sister and nieces will always be grateful to their brother and uncle for taking such exceptional care of Dr. and Mrs. Ferrebee until the day they died.