Barbara Collins Stauss

On February 28, 2025, peacefully in her own bed, with a dear friend and caregiver at her side, our remarkable mother, friend, auntie, grandmother, great grandmother Barbara Stauss passed from this Earth. She celebrated her 95th birthday the month before and remarked, "I'm almost 100!" She retained her lively wit and keen desire to reach out to others right up until her final days. Barbara was born in San Francisco on January 22,1930 to Ann Marie Collins (Anater) and Charles Lawrence Collins. The family moved to Sacramento and resided for many years in the East Sacramento vicinity of McKinley Park where she started her lifelong love of reading at the Clunie Library.

Barbara learned to be an amazing baker from her grandmother, Monica Anater and every year she made dozens of Christmas cookies for family and friends. When her children were young, she baked all the bread for the family, cooked all the meals, and went into Northern California forests to collect blackberries and huckleberries for jam. She could create original recipes based on her extensive cookbook collection, and she had a lifelong love of parsley.

She had a lifelong artistic sense, creating fabric creations, wall art, collage, and drawings. As an example, she saved the cotton from vitamin bottles, spun the cotton into thread, and crocheted the thread into a doily.

A fierce advocate for the rights of women and the marginalized, she was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter, with a Bernie bobblehead decorating the desk near her computer and a sign in the window. She supported every election where Jovanka Beckles was a candidate.

Between 1959 and 1969, she was a co-leader of the Trinity Fellowship, a youth wilderness camping experience, held in the Trinity Alps, and sponsored by the United Methodist Church. More than 100 young people attended these camps and retreats over the years and remained close friends to her and to each other. Many of her "campers" thought of her as a mom.

In 1950, she married Henry E. Rinne and started a family, living first in Crescent City, and then the San Fernando Valley. Her oldest son, Paul predeceased her in 2002. She is survived by Daniel Rinne (Vicki), and Fred Rinne (Pearl). Moving to Northern California in the 1970s, she married the love of her life, Michael Stauss. In 1990, Barbara and Michael moved into Atchison Village where Michael lived until his passing in 2006, and Barbara through the end of her life. She is survived by grandchildren, Ada Rinne, Monica Rinne Freznel, Jedidiah Rinne and great-grandchildren, Margo, Loretta, and Bowman.

A memorial will be held at the Atchison Village Social Hall, 270 Curry Street, Richmond, CA 94801 on Sunday, May 4 at 2:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her name can be made to Creating Freedom Movements at https://www.creatingfreedommovements.org/