Biography | Steve Jobs — The Memorial Church Service Eleven Days After He Died

Jobs died at home in Palo Alto on 5 October 2011. That house is still a private address and is not the pin.

The public place the valley used to mark the death is this church.

On the evening of 16 October several hundred guests walked a candle-lined path to Stanford Memorial Church on the Main Quad. Apple hosted the service. Police closed the approaches.

Laurene Powell Jobs, his sister Mona Simpson, and three of his children spoke. Jonathan Ive spoke. Larry Ellison spoke. Joan Baez sang. Bono sang a Dylan song Jobs had liked.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Page, Tim Cook, and John Lasseter were in the nave. The church holds about 1,200. Reports of the crowd that night range from a few hundred to a full house.

A reception followed in the Rodin Sculpture Garden. A separate gathering for Apple staff was held later in Cupertino.

Jane Stanford built the church, finished in 1903, as a memorial to her husband. It is interdenominational. It has been repaired after the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. It is a working campus church, not a Jobs shrine.

His ashes were not placed here. Do not look for a grave in the quad. Stand in the courtyard, keep voices down when a service is on, and leave the family pews alone.

Photo: Stanford Memorial Church, via Wikimedia Commons