Jon Lindbergh, 88, died peacefully at home Thursday, July 29, 2021, of metastatic renal cancer. He was predeceased by his parents, Charles Augustus and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, as well as a brother, Charles Lindbergh, Jr. and sister, Anne Spencer Lindbergh.
To say Jon lived a full and varied life is an understatement. He attended Stanford University where he lived in a tent in Los Trancos Woods, and was an active member of the Alpine Club. As a student in 1953 he made a pioneering dive into the undersea Bower Cave in California. After graduating with a degree in Marine Biology he trained as a frogman and joined the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team. He also had a short acting career as an extra in Sea Hunt and in several movies.
He continued as a commercial deep seadiver and participated in several experimental diving projects including Man in Sea, in 1964. This involved staying in Edwin Link’s “Submersible, Portable, Inflatable Dwelling” for 49 hours at a depth of 432 feet while breathing a helium-oxygen mixture. Jon sent telegrams – the first ever from an undersea habitat – to each of his children. He was also an integral part of the development and testing of the Navy’s Alvin deep-ocean submersible, a descendant of which was used to locate the remains of the Titanic.
During the Palomares incident in 1966, Jon was part of a team sent to recover a missing hydrogen bomb which had been lost by the US off the coast of Spain. When a C-130 transport plane was shot down in the waters off Vietnam during the war, he was part of the salvage team.
The development of Seattle’s regional water treatment system brought him to the Puget Sound area where he worked on that installation in cold waters as deep as 600 feet. He told how once, during an inspection, he found the entire surface of a 7” pipe porthole covered by the single sucker of an enormous cephalopod.
Jon eventually began to farm salmon in Puget Sound and later in southern Chile, where he was also involved in cultivating cranberries. An Honorary Life Member of the World Aquaculture Society, he consulted on projects worldwide.
Jon was an avid outdoorsman. He regularly hiked, gardened, tended his bees, and cut and split wood. We will greatly miss his honey and maple syrup, and his well-aged blackberry wine. His wonderful stories will echo through the generations.
Of all his achievements, he often said his greatest legacy was his children. With his first wife, Barbara Robbins: Kristina, Wendy, Lars, Leif, Erik, and Morgan. And with his present wife, Maura Lindbergh: Anne and Alena. He is also survived by his siblings, Land, Reeve and Scott Lindbergh; his eight grandchildren, Anna Hodgdon, Margot Galbraith, Sasha Kleszy, Rose Lindbergh-McDonnell, Amelia Lindbergh, Kristen Lindbergh, Ryan Lindbergh, and August Lindbergh; and two great-grandchildren, Charley Alice Hodgdon and Henry Tucker Hodgdon; and two more great-grandchildren soon to arrive.
Jon was cremated according to his wishes. A memorial service will be planned for a later date.
In lieu of flowers, donations to Blue Ridge Autism and Achievement Center in Roanoke, VA, would be appreciated.
Wallace & Wallace Funeral Home in Lewisburg is in charge of arrangements. Please send online condolences by visiting www.WallaceandWallaceFH.com
