Carroll Brentano

1926 - 2019

Carroll Winslow Brentano

July 4, 1926 - May 9, 2019

Carroll Winslow Brentano, after a life of optimism and adventure, died at age 92, on May 9, 2019, in Orono, Maine. She was born on the 4th of July in Summit, New Jersey to Frances Fleming Winslow and James Wallace Winslow. For many years she was a camper and then canoe counselor at Camp Bendito, in Harrison, Maine. She graduated from Summit High School in 1944, and from Smith College, where she lived in Comstock House, in 1948. She spent her junior year at the University of Toronto. After graduation she lived in Washington, DC, working at the Army Security Agency, and then on to Berkeley, California, where she lived in International House, earning an MA in history from the University of California in 1951. While working toward a PhD in Art History, she met and, in 1956, married Robert Brentano, a professor of medieval history at UC Berkeley, who predeceased her in 2002. They had three children: James in 1959, Margaret in 1960, and Robert in 1963.
She received her PhD in 1967 and taught art history courses at UC Davis, San Jose State, Hayward State, and St. Mary's College. For a number of years she led programs in Rome, Florence, and Venice for the UC Extension Scholars Abroad program. She researched campus planning as the coordinator of the University History Project at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at Berkeley, and she was a founder, editor and frequent contributor to the "Chronicle of the University of California." She was a member of the Society for Architectural Historians, the Institute for Historical Study, the Town and Gown Club, and the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, where she served two terms as president. She was a supporting member of numerous far-flung historical societies and libraries. Carroll was an intrepid traveller and she and her husband, Bob, lived almost every summer of their long marriage in Italy, first in Rome and then in Venice. She continued to live at home in Berkeley through her eighties, for a particularly happy stretch with her grandchildren, and then in her nineties she moved to Dirigo Pines in Orono, Maine near her daughter's family.
She is very much missed by her children, James (Thama), Margaret (Nicholson Baker) and Robert; her grandchildren, Alice Baker Madan (Asher), Andrew Brentano (Jena), Katherine Brentano Beaman (Travis), Elias Baker and Linden Brentano; her brother James Wallace Winslow III (Doris); nephews, nieces, and many friends.
A private memorial ceremony will be held in her honor on September 1, 2019. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift in her name to your own local historical society.