Sevilla Hayden (Shuey) Shinn (1915 - 2008)

Born 1915 in Oakland, Alameda, California, United States

Ancestors

Died 23 Dec 2008 at about age 93 in San Rafael, Marin, California, United States

Biography

Husband was Vice Admiral Allen M Shinn, U. S. Navy died in 1998

Children are:

• Allen M Shinn, Jr. Edgartown
• James W Shinn, Kensington, California
• Jonathan H Shinn, Belvedere, California

Sources

• Obituary found on the website: vineyard gazette.com

Sevilla Hayden Shuey Shinn, 93, Was Pioneer Scion Thursday, January 3, 2008 - 7:00pm Sevilla Hayden Shuey Shinn died Dec. 23 after a brief battle with pneumonia. She was 93.

She was a longtime resident of the Villa Marin retirement center in San Rafael, Calif.

Scion of a pioneer family, Mrs. Shinn was the wife of Vice Admiral Allen M. Shinn, U.S. Navy, who died in 1998. She was the daughter of Clarence Arthur Shuey and Sevilla Hayden Shuey of Berkeley.

Born in Oakland, Calif., she graduated from Anna Head School and the University of California at Berkeley, where she was a member of Alpha Phi sorority.

Mrs. Shinn’s great-grandfather, Robert Martin Shuey, was a California Pioneer, crossing the plains in 1849 to work in the mines. The Shuey family eventually settled in Danville and became prominent ranchers and merchants; their historic Victorian home is now designated a Danville Historic Resource. Mrs. Shinn was a member of The National Society of Colonial Dames of America through her mother’s side of the family.

Mrs. Shinn’s husband of 62 years, Admiral Shinn, was the scion of another longtime Bay Area family, which came to Niles (Fremont) in 1856 and became prominent horticulturalists and fruit ranchers. The historic Shinn homestead, a gift of the admiral’s mother to the city in 1962, is now a Fremont park and arboretum open to the public.

Mrs. Shinn’s husband was a direct descendent of Thomas Mayhew, the first governor of Martha’s Vineyard. Mrs. Shinn, an avid interior designer and gardener, devoted much of her life to restoring and maintaining the ancestral Mayhew home, built in 1786 in the town of Edgartown. Their historic house is now on the National Historic Registry and her garden won an American Horticultural Society Gold Medal.

In her younger years, Mrs. Shinn was active in civic and school affairs on the Vineyard, and subsequently was active in the Navy Relief Society. In 1969, she was invited to christen the submarine rescue ship USS Pigeon.

Mrs. Shinn’s only sibling, her brother Hayden Shuey , died on the same date a year earlier.

Survivors include her three sons: Allen M. Shinn Jr. of Edgartown, James W. Shinn of Kensington, Calif. and Jonathan H. Shinn of Belvedere, Calif.; and a sister in law, Betsy Shuey of Greenbrae, Calif.

At Mrs. Shinn’s request, funeral arrangements are private.