Wilber Allen Sweeters

Long-time Palisadian Wilber Allen “Jess” Sweeters passed away at age 101 at home surrounded by his family on Sunday evening, December 30.

Jess was born on July 30, 1917, in Anaheim, where he spent his childhood roaming his parents’ orange groves, driving a tractor, running a paper route and as a member of the first graduating class at St. Boniface.

At Loyola High School, Jess was the school’s first boarder, and earned his keep answering the switchboard and washing cars for his beloved Jesuits. As a high school track star in the 1930s at the same time Jesse Owens was winning Olympic gold, Jess earned his life-long nickname.

At Loyola University, Jess played basketball with eventual Hall of Famers and majored in journalism and philosophy.

After graduation, Jess worked for a welding company that did big projects in LA before landing a job with the LA City Fire Department in the early 1940s.

Wartime brought his enlistment in the Coast Guard, training at the academy in New London Conn. as an officer and navigator, and submarine-hunting in the North Atlantic. He was the only officer to see his ship, the U.S.S. Grand Rapids, both commissioned and decommissioned.

Jess returned from the war with his lively new wife Helen Boyce from NYC, whom he met on a blind date at the Waldorf Astoria, and to the fire department.

In 1950, the couple and young family moved into the Pacific Palisades home Jess built himself with the help of his firefighter friends—and he never left.

Jess and Helen were founding members of Corpus Christi Parish. Using the G.I. bill, Jess earned a law degree on his off days.

He retired as a fire captain on a day in 1961 and started the next day as a trial attorney with the LA County District Attorney’s Office.

After retiring in 1982, Jess served several years as president of the Exceptional Children’s Foundation, and enjoyed watercolor, woodworking, travel, Loyola High alumni lunches and the company of many, especially Helen (deceased), his five children, Hank (deceased), Steve, Jim, Julianne Carney, and Maryclaire Buchanan, and his four grandchildren, Noah and Nathaniel Sweeters and Boyce and Finlay Buchanan.

Jess lived long and joyfully, and his gentle presence will be forever missed. His life was celebrated January 11 at 11 a.m. at Corpus Christi Church in Pacific Palisades.