Marvin Stanley Hollander

Marvin Stanley Hollander died July 14. He was 86.

Hollander was born in Oakland, Calif. on July 30, 1923, the second son of William and Lillian Hollander. His father was a prominent Oakland attorney and well known as a baseball coach and promoter of youth and semi-pro baseball in the area.

He and his older brother Jay both played youth baseball. As he grew older, Hollander was drawn more to raising his various pets and to mechanical pursuits whether it was cars, motorcycles, boats or any type of machinery.

He attended Cleveland Elementary, Oakland High School and, after military service, Cal Aggie, now known as UC Davis.

Hollander was a member of the “greatest generation,” completing 50 missions in World War II as a waist gunner and tail gunner in a B-17 flight crew with the 99th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, flying out of North Africa and Italy. His mission destinations read like a map of the Southern Reich — Polesti, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Belgarde, Budapest and many more. He was discharged as a technical sergeant in December 1945, after which he lived in Chico, Calif. trying his hand at farming and raising horses.

Later he embarked on a career as a welder-technician for FMC Corporation and at LLNL.

He married Hellen Dobbas in 1960 and they lived in Fremont, Calif., where she was a history teacher. They had no children. They moved to Oroville, Calif., her childhood home, in 1979 after retirement, where he was able to pursue his love for hunting, fishing and aviation.

Hollander and his wife traveled extensively until her death in 1999. He became a small plane pilot late in life and greatly enjoyed all aspects of flight and aircraft mechanics. He was a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association and the National Rifle Association.

He is survived by two nephews, Jeff Hollander of Corte Madera, Calif., and Bill Hollander of Boulder, Colo.; and one niece, Jan Hollander of Menlo Park, Calif. He leaves many friends in the Oroville community.

Private family services were held on July 24 in Oroville.