Bay Area joins in mourning of Queen Elizabeth II
SAN FRANCISCO - About 5,000 miles separate San Francisco and Balmoral, Scotland where Queen Elizabeth II died. But the memories of her visit to the San Francisco Bay Area nearly 40 years ago means many are feeling her loss today.
The year was 1983, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, and the city of San Francisco played host to Queen Elizabeth II.
"We are very grateful for your charming hospitality and for the generous reception we have had everywhere since our arrival in California last week," said Elizabeth in her remarks in San Francisco.
The queen visited San Francisco as part of a whirlwind week and a half visit to California in February and March of that year. The queen dining at a state dinner at the old de Young museum, even commenting on the similarities between two notoriously foggy cities, London and San Francisco.
"I knew before we came we had exported many of our traditions to the United States," said Elizabeth. "But, I had not realized before that weather was one of them."
On that same visit, the queen took in the majesty of Yosemite National Park, and had a profound impact on Willie Brown who says the queen struck him as grounded and intellectually curious, asking questions about his role as the then-speaker of the Assembly.
"She asked all those questions as if she was a student in a class involving state politics," said Brown.
Earlier in that trip, Her Majesty was serenaded by none other than Perry Como and Frank Sinatra.
On another visit in 1991, the queen even attended a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland A's, greeting players and coaches in the dugout, and waving to the crowd.
Those visits and the ties they cemented between the queen and the San Francisco Bay Area are part of the reason Grace Cathedral's bells tolled 96 times at noon today.
"We rang the bells, we tolled the bells for each year of Queen Elizabeth's life," said Dean Malcolm Young. "She's an incredibly important person in the lives of the people in our community."
The church says the queen's role as the head of the Church of England means there are deep ties to her majesty and the Episcopal Church.
"Her sense of duty, her sense of commitment, her measures sense of good judgment," said Young. "I think that all of us want to do whatever it is we do in the best possible way and I think she really modeled that for all people around the world."
Staff at the British consulate in San Francisco say they are in the process of working out a way for people here to pay their respects to the queen at their headquarters in the Financial District.
Grace Cathedral says it will open its doors and live stream the service when the queen is laid to rest.