Obituary of Samuel Pinneau

Samuel R. Pinneau, lover of people, animals, and computer bytes, passed peacefully at 1:07pm, April 23, 2012, in his Northridge, CA home in the presence of his two youngest children. Sam is survived by sister Betty (Hixson), wife Ruth Ann (Lehnhardt), their six children, S. Richard Jr, Linda Marie (Urban), Marcia Ruth, Bruce Alexander, James Louis, and Janet Elizabeth - and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Born to John W. (J.W., Jack) and Miriam (Elliott) Pinneo on April 9, 1922, in a modest Arkansas home without running water, Sam was raised mostly in Okmulgee, OK, where the Great Depression made earning a living a real challenge. Friends of the family still remember how they were stirred when he led hymns from the church piano, and Sam considered for a time a career in the ministry. But hard times and the war took Sam, brother Jack Glen and father J.W. to the San Francisco Bay area to join the war effort in the ship yards. At the physical workday's end, Sam went on to explore the exciting world of ideas at UC Berkeley. The G.I. bill was good to Sam and eventually enabled him to dive full-time into academics. He earned Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees in psychology at Cal. Sam moved on to faculty positions over the years: at the University of Oregon, the University of Houston, back at Berkeley, and finally at Cal State Northridge (CSUN). One of his original charges at CSUN was to develop a Child Study Center, since he had cut his teeth on Berkeley's like-named center. To Sam and his graduate students their CSUN project was affectionately nicknamed the "Childless Study Center" - filled as it was more with data in IBM punchcard boxes than with live children. Openness to new ideas and to outside-the-box approaches for research or teaching was very important to Sam, but openness to human beings was vital. He will be remembered fondly by many as a father, friend and mentor who accepted a person's quirkiest qualities and who saw their greatest potentials when no one else appreciated them. For students, family members, or a stranger he encountered he was ready to connect in an instant with what was important to them - or underappreciated about them. His years of "retirement" were fully engaged with family and with innovations in software that might enrich worldly life. When his mobility was finally limited to navigating the neighborhood near CSUN with his walker, he made sure to have a bag of doggie treats attached to it - building friendships with even more two-leggeds and four-leggeds. Sam once said he had had times when his only friend was Jesus. By the end of his stay on earth, there certainly were many people who felt that Sam was their only friend.