July 24, 1946 - December 26, 2022
Marina Gottschalk, a reporter and facilitator, passed away on December 26th, 2022
After a valiant fight against cancer. She was 76. Marina was born in Shanghai, China in 1946 and at the age of 2 was brought to Oakland, California by her late parents, Fritz and Irma Gottschalk.
After graduating from Merritt College with a degree in journalism she joined the Oakland Tribune and eventually became the columnist in charge for action line. This column helped readers contend with and solve issues in their lives.
After the sale and subsequent merger of the Tribune, Marina settled in at Inform Public Relations as their facilitator and scribe for community advisory panel (caps) meetings between industrial sites and their neighbors.
Marina had been a lifelong member of Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland and was quite involved with them for many years. She is survived by her cousins, Daniel and David Fink, as well as many colleagues and friends that she collected throughout her career and many social engagements.
Marina's burial was held on January 5th, 2023 at Gan Shalom Cemetery in Briones, California. It was thoughtfully officiated by rabbi mark bloom and was well attended despite a driving rain storm.
A celebration of life will be held at Zio Fraedo's restaurant in Pleasant Hill, Ca At noon on January 28th.
If desired, donations can be made to Sinai Memorial Chapel, hospice of the east bay or Temple Beth Abraham, all of whom assisted in Marina's care.
Historical Review;
A resident of Contra Costa County, Gottschalk also worked for many years at Inform Public Relations/Dynamic Networking in Martinez after leaving the Tribune.
Janet Ghent, one of Gottschalk’s former colleagues, said Gottschalk was born in Shanghai, which had a sizable Jewish refugee community, and that the family arrived in San Francisco on Oct. 5, 1948, on the last ship out of Shanghai before the city fell to the Chinese communists in their war against the country’s nationalists.
Born just more than two years before that to Fritz and Irma Gottschalk on July 24, 1946, Marina Gottschalk went on to earn a bachelor’s degree before joining the Tribune as a copy editor in 1967 and working her way up the ranks. Through the years, she covered a variety of stories, including news and events in Richmond. In an effort to expand its East Bay coverage, the Tribune assigned Gottschalk to its new San Leandro bureau in 1978.
By then, she already was involved in the Action Line column as an assistant, ultimately taking it over in 1979 when previous columnist Cliff Pletschet was promoted to business editor. Through Action Line, Gottschalk helped readers contend with and solve problems often compounded by government or corporate bureaucracy.
The Tribune itself underwent many changes during Gottschalk’s tenure. Long owned and operated by the Knowland family when Gottschalk joined the paper, the Tribune was sold in 1977 to Combined Communications Corp., which merged two years later with Gannett Co., the East Coast-based nationwide media conglomerate (best known for later launching the USA Today national newspaper).
Tribune Editor Robert Maynard and his wife, Nancy Hicks Maynard, bought the paper (financed by a loan from Gannett) in 1983. Despite the quality of journalism published in the Tribune, Gottschalk and other staffers worked through much uncertainty as financial pressures mounted. Gannett and the Freedom Forum nonprofit foundation kept the paper temporarily afloat in 1991, but the company was sold to the Alameda Newspaper Group, a MediaNews Group division, the following year.
Gottschalk joined Inform Public Relations in 1993.
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