Ernestine Kinney Dies; a Fixture at Occidental
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday on the Occidental College campus for a woman whose affiliation with that school began when she was a young girl.
Ernestine Adele Kinney, whose father, Charles Kinney, helped obtain the land for the present Occidental campus north of downtown Los Angeles and who then went on to become an influential teacher of teachers there for 35 years, was 91 when she died.
A 1917 Occidental graduate, Miss Kinney retired in 1960 after a career that brought her many honors and produced two ongoing awards and grants in her name that help current education majors.
She was a member of the last class to graduate from the old Occidental Academy in 1913 and then joined the first class to spend four years at the college’s new Eagle Rock campus.
After graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, Miss Kinney taught in Los Angeles-area high schools before becoming an education instructor at Occidental in 1925.
During the job-scarce Depression she was credited with personally contacting area school superintendents to find jobs for her graduates, compiling what was considered an exceptional hiring record for the time.
She was a member of several state and national education committees and was a founding member of the California Council on Teacher Education.
Contributions are suggested to the Ernestine A. Kinney Scholarship Fund at Occidental, established in 1963 to support postgraduate education majors.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
