History of Holy Names College

About the Book

About the Author

Doctor Ethel Mary Tinnemann, snjm, was born in Oakland, California, where she has spent most of her life. As a member of the University of California at Berkeley’s class of 1938, she continued a family tradition that began with her parents’ graduation from Cal in 1905. After graduation, she worked briefly for an insurance firm. She then returned to the university for graduate work; she received a master’s degree in history and a credential in education. After this preparation, she entered the Sisters of the Holy Names, a teaching community of religious. She spent thirteen happy years teaching history. She returned to the university from 1956 to 1960 and earned her Ph.D. in Modern European Studies. She then began a teaching career at Holy Names College that spanned 40 years until her retirement in 2000. Her writings include a history of her mother’s family, the Parrishes, articles about her experiences during a sabbatical in Germany and articles about Oakland history. She developed several short-term extension courses in local history, including Oakland, Southern Alameda County, Sonoma, the Gold Country and San Francisco. She also researched the old homes in two Oakland neighborhoods. She served five years on the Oakland Landmarks Advisory Board and led tours of Oakland districts. She also wrote two articles: one about West Oakland and the second about “Arbor Villa,” the “Borax” Smith property in Oakland. She has served on the boards of Oakland’s Camron-Stanford House and the Oakland Heritage Alliance. Around the mid-1980s she became active in the League of Women Voters and worked hard to register voters, educate them by means of public forums and get them to vote on election day. In 1999, she was awarded The Great Seal of the Great State of California for this work. Now, at the age of 86, she limits herself to working in the polling booth and to writing history.