But I think that there has been only one nun - Sister Ethel Mary Tinnemann. And she was quite a person. A graduate of the University of California in the late 1930s, she received her doctorate in modern European history in 1960 - also from UC Berkeley - a university that I attended during the very interesting and turbulent times of 1966 and 1967 - but that's an entirely different story.
Sister Ethel took her vows in 1943 and was a professor at Holy Names University from 1960 through 1997. She was an avid registrar of voters - signing up thousands of new voters in Oakland's toughest neighborhoods. That success enabled her to be inducted as a member of the California Voter's Hall of Fame in 1999.
I only was able to communicate with her but just once - a letter that I wrote to her in 2004 while doing research on my great grandmother, who was the sister of Ethel's grandmother - which makes us second cousins once removed. She did write me back once but unfortunately that was the only communication that we had. Sister Ethel passed in 2008 after living and serving for over 91 years.
So a much deserved - but unfortunately late tribute to Sister Ethel - another of my relatives that I would loved to have met.
Below are two pictures of her - one later in life and one as a UC Berkeley student in the 1930s (where she was a tennis champ in her Junior year).


(Click to enlarge)
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