Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 139

ALTHOUGH T- nphaesic and impaired by a lOjrears back, gardens of her old after Dr Eugene Hilgard 85-y ear Told Genevieve Dodd waters her gardens at her Berkeley home today from a wheel chair. Since she a cannot "talk to her plants she kisses them instead to encoujnge their. Linda Dodds- great -love for plants and flowers was instilled in her when she was a mere girlno doubt accounting, for the courage she now shows in attending the Mrs. Dodd was born Gehrin-- ger.neafConcordiiTClontra Costa County in 1888, only eight years planted the. nucleus of the U.

CrI Botanical Gardens in Berkeley. She was raised on the. Contra Costa land: claimed' by her German pioneer grandparents (Den-, kinger and Gehringer). The histo--ry of her family parallels and criscrosses the colorful biogra-. y.phies ofluch early Californians as the dons Solano, Peralta, Pa checo cente Martinez, John Charles Fre montrJoaquin" Finger Jack, Black Bart, John Sutter and John Marsh.

Also many others Bancroft didnt men-' tion, dating through the Russian territorial claims, the Mexican Revolution, the Gold Rush, and oq to Statehood. This should explain Lindav Gehringer Dodds appearance T.Jn a wheel chair: at the Oakland "Museum a 1912 commute train in Brentwood Undo pehringer wearing flower garden hat disembarks from been-soaccura i paintM it even includes a land-mark-hrthedistanthills wind-break of eucalyptus planted by her grandfather nearly 150 years ago. Still visible today, the trees stand with Concord sprawled beneath them. Linda grew up on those vast Then, 45 years of teaching and school administration, work followed and overlapped. From a stable at Dwight Way and Telegraph Avenue in Berke- few, months ago durtng.a threes ley-Linda daily rode-her horse Twinkle to Miils5)lle iir si Herbarium and California nairiAi, AAmnuto tiA Oakland! to her Wildflowers, to which she contributed through botanical research from 1909 to 1926.

Not only did she discover a rare wild specie of flora in the high Sierra -but, as Dr. Willis Lynn Jepsons prize pupil and masters candidate, she was instrumental in the the U.C. Botanical-Gardens before they were moved in 1926 and again in 1928 to their present location atthe east end of Strawberry Canyon. complete practice teaching. After a few years at Rio Vista and Brentwood she married an Irish scholar, Frank L.

Dodd, Professor at SL Marys Col-. lege. They returned to Berkeley to dwell when the honeymoon was over. Mary E. Wilson, principal, then asked Linda Dodd to teach at; the Anna Head schooL The little botany' laboratory in the large shingle- complex on Bowditch became hen bailiwick for .19 after which 25 more years of teaching all grades in two counties "During all those years' Linda G.

Dodd kept her own house, cooked and sewed and raised her three children. She became in-. volved in politics and real estate. -Losing her home, she was forced to move during the In spite of the financial collapse she -played her piano -and started over again. She buried family and loved ones, including ONE of the exquisite, realistic I wild-life exhibits at the Oakland Museum depicts eagles in the crags of ML Diablo.

The scene overlooks Ygnado Valley and includes the original territorial claim of Andrew George one of Contra Costa. Countys pioneer settlers. During Linda Gehringer Dodds reCent usitfotheOakland Museum it was not coincidental 7 that, she recognized her fathers A. she indicated the landscape of the endued si Page IS Hike-loving Undo was an early member of fhe Sierra Chib.