Jackie MacFarlane, a retired bartender for the Old Western Saloon whose warmth earned her the nickname “Mom” among patrons and locals alike, died peacefully in her sleep on Dec. 18 at a nursing home in Petaluma. She was 95 years old.
Born on Jan. 13, 1921, Ms. MacFarlane was raised on her family’s trout farm, off Portola Avenue, in Inverness Park. She attended Tomales High School for a short time before graduating from Oakland Technical High School. She met her first husband, John Ronayne, in Turlock and the couple moved to Concord. They married and had four children: Larry, Craig, Steve and Kay. Mr. Ronayne worked as a real estate agent and Ms. MacFarlane focused on raising the children. Craig recalls his upbringing as “lenient” and “without a lot of negativity.” While living in Concord, the family would often vacation at the family’s cabin in Inverness Park.
In her spare time, Ms. MacFarlane enjoyed bowling and she belonged to a league that would meet twice weekly. She also volunteered as a “pink lady” at the Concord
hospital.
Ms. MacFarlane and Mr. Ronayne separated in the mid-1960s and she began dating the city’s undertaker, Dick MacFarlane. The couple wed in 1969 and then relocated to Inverness Park full-time. Dr. Michael Whitt was their neighbor and noted the MacFarlane’s “gorgeous” garden, brimming with rhododendrons and birds. “When you wanted to see birds, you just had to walk down the street to Jackie’s house,” he said.
The MacFarlanes worked at the Tomales Bay Resort before transitioning into the job that would cement their presence in Point Reyes Station.
Judy Borello took over ownership of the Old Western Saloon in 1971 and within a few years had hired the couple to help run the bar. “They were down there all the time,” she said. Ms. MacFarlane worked behind the rails while her husband tended to the business operation and managed the stock of libations, and the pair would always walk the 1.5-mile commute between their home and the bar. Ms. MacFarlane’s sparkling personality (“She was born with class and was always happy,” Ms. Borello said) led to nicknames such as “Bubbles,” although she and her husband were notoriously known as “Mom and Dad” to everyone who came into the bar.
“Once they went on vacation and Dick told the salesman not to oversell me and that Dick would know if he did,” Ms. Borello remembered. “The salesman thought Dick was my actual father!”
Craig was fond of his mother’s moniker. “People give you a nickname like that because they like you,” he said. “She loved everybody and that was a wonderful part about her.” On the other hand, Larry said he took to the sobriquet differently. “That was a hard spot,” he said. “That they always called her that.”
On a Friday evening in 1976, Lee Giammona walked into the Western and found a lifelong friend in Ms. MacFarlane. The two remained best friends until the end, and there was seldom a day when the two didn’t chat on the phone.
“Jackie remembered everybody who came into the Western and to Inverness Park,” Ms. Giammona said. “When you walked into the Western, your drink was on the bar when you sat down. Jackie and Dick had a huge constituency of regular customers, because that’s what you did in Point Reyes in 1976: you went to the Western after work to catch up with your friends.”
Mr. and Ms. MacFarlane bartended and helped manage the saloon until the early 1990s, when they decided to retire. Looking back on years of stories and tales, Ms. Borello recalls one involving a misunderstanding she had with a customer and how Ms. MacFarlane was there to smoothe it all out.
“One time we had a contest where everyone in the bar put their names down on a chart and then bet on a square. The winner won a couple hundred bucks and typically they’d buy a round for the bar,” Ms. Borello said. “I’ll never forget the man who won; I was behind the rail and said, ‘Mom, that guy’s going to buy the whole bar a drink!’ Well, he flipped me off—you know, gave me the bird—but I had bad eyes and thought he was saying he’d buy just one round! Jackie was there to [defuse the situation]. I never really saw her shaken up. She always had a calm about her.”
Outside of work and friendships, Ms. MacFarlane loved the outdoors. She played bocce ball, went to Hearts Desire Beach, birded and trekked the entirety of the Point Reyes National Seashore. Even after she and her husband moved to Springfield Living in Petaluma about 10 years ago, Ms. MacFarlane would often return to West Marin. “She drove up until her mid-90s,” Larry said. “But you couldn’t tell she was in the car; she was a real short lady.”
A few days before she died, Ms. MacFarlane gathered with Kay, Larry, Craig and her best friend for an early Christmas dinner. Craig cooked salmon and Ms. Giammona said they ate ice cream while laughing over Old Western Saloon stories. Ms. MacFarlane, who had recently begun hospice, passed away in her sleep the following Sunday afternoon.
“We could all be so lucky to be 95 and at the very end be so terrific,” Ms. Giammona said. “What could be better?”