Lucy Ellen Shinn was just a black and white photo on the wall at Shinn House. We never never knew much about her and what kind of person she was.
She and her husband, James, raised five talented children, three who survived beyond into adulthood. Their childhoods spanned from the 1850s to 1880s during the time when Shinn's Nurseries was underway.
In 2020 we were fortunate to learn about Lucy from letters that she wrote to her daughter Millie. Kathryn Kasch, descendant of Lucy's oldest son, Charles Howard Shinn, spent many hours of her pandemic days transcribing 120 of Lucy's letters. The letters cover the span from 1873 to 1882. During this time, Millie was in grade school and then later in college, one of the first women admitted to the new University of California. Millie later was the first woman to receive a PhD from UC Berkeley.
