San Francisco herbalism pioneer Jeanne Rose dies at 87

For my friend, Jeanne Rose, authenticity was important.

For Jeanne, “real” food meant organic vegetables, preferably from a farmer’s market, and humanely raised meat, and a “real martini” was made with gin, because vodka was “for people who don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

As a fashion designer for the rock and roll greats of San Francisco’s Summer of Love, her clothes had to be made from natural materials, and as one of the mothers of American herbal medicine and aromatherapy (she’s credited with popularizing the term “hydrosol” for distilled water), her perfumes had to be made from plant-based ingredients, not synthetic.

A “real dog” also had to meet certain standards. Mainly, it had to be big. In Jean’s most famous photograph, taken in Buena Vista Park in 1967 for the Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner’s California Living Sunday magazine, her blue Great Dane, George, sits beside her with her hippie-clad ladies. George was almost as big as Jean, at 5 feet 2 inches tall, but with his long dark hair, high cheekbones and menacing eyes, he was the star of the photo.

Also pictured is her friend, singer Janis Joplin, wearing a Jeanne the Taylor poncho. Jefferson Airplane vocalist Grace Slick is a fan of Jeanne’s cowl-neck San Francisco Fog suit dresses but was not present for the shoot.

Jeanne had many rituals, spells and potions that would have made me frown if I had called her a spiritual practice. She was witch-like, but never mystical. When I learned that Jeanne passed away on Saturday, June 15, in San Francisco, at age 87, after a long battle with congestive heart failure, I wondered if I would get to experience one last act of her magic.

She was the high priestess of a loosely-built coven that included people who loved her clothing, a worldwide network of students who took her classes in herbology, distilling, and aromatherapy, and the vendors, waiters, and bartenders at the farmers’ markets she frequented on her weekly routine.

After I interviewed and wrote about Jeanne in 2017, her fashions were featured in the de Young Museum’s Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll, and I became part of her daily routine. In Jeanne’s later years, when the Ferry Building Farmers Market became too difficult to walk, Sunday afternoons at her house above the Haight-Ashbury became our go-to date. Our afternoons centered around long conversations in her dining room, a table full of essential oils she would share with us, and the occasional (yes, often) gin tasting.

Jeanne (pronounced like a genie in a bottle) was born Jeanne Colon on January 9, 1937, in Antioch. Growing up among the almond orchards of the East Bay, Jeanne developed a love of nature that would shape the rest of her life. She earned degrees in botany and science from San Jose State University and went on to graduate school in marine biology at the University of Miami, where she was the only woman in the program.

After two marriages and a secret escape from the segregated South (she said her olive skin annoyed local racists), Jean returned to California, dividing her time between hippie capital Big Sur and San Francisco. In 1964, she gave birth to a daughter, Amber, with her third husband, Neil Rose, and in 1973, a son, Brian, with her fourth husband, the artist Michael Moore.

After giving birth to Amber, Jeanne went off LSD for the first time, an experience she says was crucial in her self-discovery.

“I remember being very conscious of my surroundings, the trees around me, the feel of things,” she told me in 2017. “I realized how important it was to me to have natural things and to make things consciously. It may sound simplistic now, but I thought I could make a difference in the world by making something beautiful, handmade, for someone else.”

A natural seamstress, she entered the world of fashion design when her drummer boyfriend needed a shirt to wear to a gig at the Fillmore, and she quickly sewed one out of her handspun cotton yarn. Her hippie-chic style caught on and she began dressing musicians such as Jefferson Airplane’s Jooma and Peter Kaukonen, Blood, Sweat and Tears’ Ron McClure, Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Peter Albin, Country Joe and the Fish’s Barry Melton, The Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere, and The Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart. Over the years, her aesthetic of bold colors, multicultural influences, natural materials, and loose silhouettes for both men and women has become a widely referenced part of mainstream fashion.

After her career as a designer, she spent 50 years working with plants and herbs, writing 22 books on the subject, including her best-known work, “Herbs & Things,” published in 1969.

During my Sunday visit, Jeanne taught me about antique silverware, the works of Art Nouveau masters, and cultivating a sense of smell. She also taught me the importance of slowing down and savoring what is in front of me, whether that be a glass of chilled Taittinger champagne, a performance of her favorite story ballet (she has been an avid fan of the San Francisco Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” for more than 50 years), or simply being with someone. We never ran out of things to talk about, but we also sat quietly together at her table, happy in each other’s presence.

When I heard of her passing while traveling in France, I tried to experience as many of her favorite authentic things as I could: listening to Jefferson Airplane’s “Crown of Creation” followed by a lunch of asparagus risotto and delicious rose wine (it was still too early for gin).

I breathed in the scent of ozone and grass in the summer air, and felt her presence when I saw a woman about Jeanne’s height walking a Great Dane outside the restaurant.

“Look, Jeanne,” I thought to myself, “there are ‘real’ dogs in Normandy.”

It was a reminder that the magic of Jeanne Rose remains on Earth.

Contact Tony Bravo at tbravo@sfchronicle.com