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In memory of
David Grant Hawkins
September 24, 1952 - June 9, 2020
Sep 24, 1952 - Jun 9, 2020
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David's obituary
A Bay Area native, David Grant Hawkins was born on September 24, 1952 in Oakland, CA, the first son of what would become 6 children to Grant and Marge. In this large Mormon family, he was raised with good family values and learned to live his life by following The Golden Rule.
An active child, little David got into lots of good natured mischief and loved to take things apart and put them back together. He and his friends and brothers and sisters would have fun doing things like playing on the MacArthur Freeway when it was under construction, crawling through the tunnels under Mills College, and collecting treasures at the dumps. Dave loved tools as a child and built all kinds of things from an early age.
Always athletic, in high school Dave was on the gymnastics team and was able to perform acrobatic flips until his early 40s. After he graduated from Skyline High School in 1970, he attended Laney College in Oakland before enrolling at BYU where he studied architecture and played on the school’s volleyball team. Although he didn’t graduate from college, he always made sure his own children would. He had a drafting table for drawing his own building plans and for sketching out his own creative ideas of which he had many.
In 1974, his future wife Carol was living with her parents in Oakland and just received her driver’s license. While her parents were on vacation, she accidentally crashed their car into the garage wall. She told her brother Steve, and his wife at the time Roberta (who was good friends with Dave’s sister Bonnie) suggested that Carol call Bonnie’s brother Dave - a really nice young guy with a contractor’s license. Dave came right out to the house to fix the wall in the garage, and the damage was fixed before Carol’s parents came home, minus the paint. Her parents approved, of the work and of Dave!
Carol and Dave very shortly began dating and married in 1975 on Treasure Island. They moved into the small Fremont house that Dave had bought at the young age of 21. They enjoyed their pre-children years going to restaurants and rock concerts, like Day on the Green for Joe Walsh and more, the Keystone in Berkeley for Elvin Bishop, the Longbranch in Berkeley for the Tubes and Winterland for Bruce Springsteen. They visited Universal Studios and the newly opened Magic Mountain, and took their dog Benji with them camping at Kings Canyon.
In 1977 they purchased a fixer-upper in the Warm Springs neighborhood of Fremont. Like many contractors, prioritizing the building of his own home sort of took the back burner, and he jokingly called his house the Winchester Mystery House, since he was never finished building it and would come up with unique design features along the way!
He was busy with his construction business, doing both residential and commercial construction throughout the Bay Area. Many of his projects can be seen today, like the ADA ramp on the Patterson House in Ardenwood Historic Farm, along with numerous Supercuts and Subway Sandwich shop remodels, and residential room additions, among many others. He made friends easily with people from all walks of life, and would often become friends with his clients from many different cultures and backgrounds.
In 1982 his daughter Kristin was born. Shortly after came another daughter, Lauren in 1983. Dave was a fun and involved dad, coaching softball teams and attending soccer games, swim and track meets and band concerts. Even after he broke both feet and was in a wheelchair, he helped Kristin practice softball pitching in the street. Also, while injured he built himself a wheelchair ramp in his house so he could get to his office one step down.
Dave had great luck with winning raffles and concert tickets. He once won a family vacation to the beach resort town of Manzanillo, Mexico. It was the vacation of a lifetime and a memorable one for the girls as it was their last big family trip before going off to college. On another occasion he won VIP tickets for dinner and to see one of his favorite bands Bruce Hornsby and the Range, which included being picked up in a limo (the neighborhood kids got a kick out of that). Dave enjoyed attending Oakland A’s games with his family and with his brothers and their families. In recent years he enjoyed going to live concerts at Yoshi’s with our good neighbors.
Dave was a general building contractor since 1974 and he experienced all the highs and all the lows that go along with owning your own business. For the most part he didn’t let things bother him too much, for better or for worse. He had confidence which helped him go forward with his demanding work. But he was always able to take us on fabulous vacations to Hawaii, Disneyland, Disney World, camping, New York, skiing and snowboarding, Mexico and more.
Aside from work and family, Dave was a foodie and knew all the great spots and best food trucks. Music was a passion of his as well. If his radio wasn’t on, he was likely watching the A’s, Raiders, 49ers or Warriors play, or watching reruns of Bonanza, The Twilight Zone or Seinfeld. He had eclectic musical tastes and listened to everything from Alligator Records collections to Peter Gabriel to rock and soul. Some of his favorite bands were Stevie Ray Vaughn, Tower of Power, Huey Lewis and the News, the Allman Brothers, and The Police, to name just a few. He taught himself how to play the harmonica and loved to play along to his favorite songs. He and a friend even opened a music store in the 1990s called Tune Town.
Dave would always make us laugh which is important in any kind of relationship. Like the time he and his family were at the Medieval Times bar in 2005 and when asked for his order he said “I’ll have a Newcastle. My old castle is crumbling.” Corny yes but we laughed and laughed! He was always a goofy guy, he had a temper, but nonetheless he was a funny guy.
In the late 2000s, Dave began to have trouble seeing and was forgetting how to do things that were always second nature to him. Unfortunately he would be diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease. To see Dave who was always so capable and full of life come down with this devastating illness was truly heartbreaking. If he could he would want to thank every one of you for the help and support you have given to him and to his family over these last many years. Dave passed away from the disease peacefully in his home that he built on June 9th, 2020 at the age of 67.
Dave is survived by his wife Carol, his daughters Kristin and Lauren, sons in law Dan and Josh, and his grandsons Jonathan, Asher, William and Elliott. He will be remembered as funny, talented, hard-working, generous, creative, honest, and as a good father, husband, son, brother, neighbor and friend.
With Love, Carol, Kristin and Lauren
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Created with love by
Lauren Levenbrown (David's daughter).
