Marty Nemko was on a fast track to become a professor. He earned a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of California-Berkeley, was nominated for the school’s “Dissertation of the Year” and was looking forward to a long and storied career. But after sending out over 100 resumes, he only got offers for temporary, ...
It was not Allie Light’s first brush with an Academy Award. But the first one without her husband, a noted filmmaker and her mentor. In 1991, Light and Irving Saraf won best documentary for “In the Shadow of the Stars,” which explored the lives of the San Francisco Opera chorus. This year, 28 years later, ...
Inge Schaefer Horton was helping set up an exhibition of the work of European women architects when one of her American friends told her “it is a shame” female architects in the United States had only Julia Morgan as a role model. That was 1987 in San Francisco, when the Organization of Women Architects was ...
Once upon a time, before the written word, there was the oral tradition. Skilled storytellers addressed people’s hopes, fears and dreams by weaving a good tale. “Fairy tales, also known as ‘wisdom tales,’ were told to adults in olden days,” said Olive Hackett-Shaughnessy. “Life was hard and in the magical delight and adventure of ...
Jimmye Bynum was such a talkative, sociable person that one of her employers told her she should have been a lawyer. Her natural gift to engage with others led to choices that always seemed to benefit others, as well as herself. “I always loved to talk and help people and maybe that’s why my life ...
Blanche Capilos has severe hearing loss. It has its advantages, she said wryly. In noisy places like a mall or in restaurants, she can turn down the volume on her hearing aids. And she no longer has to hear her husband snore; she takes them out at night. “It’s my secret to a long, happy ...
