Jan Silverman

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Jan Silverman, a longtime writer and editor for the Oakland Tribune, died in October 2024 at the age of 92. According to a Facebook post, she died peacefully surrounded by her kids and grand kids.

     

The following is from  Kathy O'Toole on a conversation she had with Jan several years ago regarding her journalism career: 

  

  She started at the Tribune covering high school and wedding news for the “women’s department” in 1953 after graduation from Oakland High and Cal journalism school. She had worked on The Pelican, Cal’s humor magazine. 

      "I lived around Lake Merritt my whole life,” she said.

    

  She had to quit the Tribune when she was pregnant but Bill Fiset called her back within a few days, and when she had kids, she was allowed to work 2 or 3 days a week, which made her life wonderful, she said. 

      

 In 1963, she said, she was asked to replace the retiring “token woman” on the city desk staff.   When I knew her at the Tribune in the 1970s and 1980s, she was on the “Lifestyle” staff. We all found her to be a lovely, caring person and a fine writer.       

  She arranged the 2019 Tribune editorial department reunion at the Oakland Bellevue Club across from Lake Merritt where she and her husband, Mel, were members for years.