Ora A. Huth

1922 - 2022

Ora A. Huth
February 5, 1922 - June 22, 2022
Ora Alice Huth, a Berkeley resident for more than 60 years, died in Woodland Hills, CA, on June 22, 2022, four months after celebrating her 100th birthday. Ora was a dedicated community activist, historian, and artist, and a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother. Born in Fort Collins, Colorado, on February 5, 1922 to Guilford and Dopha Hamill Gipe, she was reared in Sacramento and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with an A.B. degree in 1942 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1947. During World War II, she served in the U.S. Marine Corps at Arlington, Virginia. From 1947-1956, she taught art in the Vallejo Unified School District. Ora married Kurt Huth in 1956, and they raised two daughters, Marlene and Carol, in Berkeley. Ora was active for many years in community affairs, serving as chair of the City of Berkeley Waterfront Commission, president of the Bay Area League of Women Voters, and research associate and author of texts on governance and California history for the University of California's Institute of Government Studies and its Regional Oral History Office. She loved art, music, Cal football, and a glass of red wine, and played tennis weekly into her 90's, to the chagrin of her younger competitors. Ora was predeceased by her husband Kurt, daughter Marlene and sister Grace Elson, and is survived by her daughter Carol Huth Amberg of Calabasas (John), grandsons David of Los Angeles and Julian of Seattle, niece Peggy Chiappetta of Gable, South Carolina, and sister-in-law Marlies Cremers of Germany.