April 26: Memorial Service for SFVS Founder, Norman Seaton

April 17, 2009

MEMORIAL SERVICE for NORMAN SEATON

April 26, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.

In the Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park, at the Railroad Trail in the south

west corner where there is a small grotto with benches in the middle. Speakers

will include Dixie Mahy, present SFVS President. Light refreshments will be

served.

Norman Seaton, PhD, one of the original founders of The San Francisco Vegetarian

Society in October 1968, passed away on March 20, 2009 (born February 16, 1922).

He served as SFVS's first Vice President until December 1970. When he had time

in those early years, he gave lectures on nutrition and health for the

Vegetarian Society using his knowledge of chemistry to give validation for a

vegetarian diet from a scientific viewpoint. He became a vegan at 12 but never

met another vegetarian until he was in his 20s. He was Scientific Advisor to

the Fund for Animals and testified at hearings on alternatives to animals in

research, the harmful effects of sonar on marine life, and served as a

crewmember on one of Greenpeace's first excursions to save the whales. Until

his death he was President and Scientific Advisor to Lifeforce Ocean Friends

Foundation based in Vancouver and Washington. He was a great admirer of Albert

Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Linus Pauling, and Mahatma Ghandi.

Dr. Seaton was a resident of El Sobrante, California when he passed away. He

was born in Vancouver, BC, Canada and attended the University of British

Columbia before coming to UC Berkeley to receive his doctorate in physics. His

Laboratory for Science invented and manufactured lazars for scientific

institutions such as universities, NASA, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory on

the condition they could not be used for military purposes. His lazars were so

exacting they were used to test the accuracy of other lazars.

Dr. Seaton is survived by his wife and companion of 39 years, Virginia Handley

Seaton, of Animal Switchboard in San Francisco where she has dedicated her life

to helping animals through her untiring lobbying efforts in Sacramento for that

same number of years.

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