Elizabeth Pinkham

Elizabeth Pinkham, of San Francisco and Healdsburg, California, passed away on August 13, 2026, with her mother and sister by her side.

Born and raised in Exeter in rural Central California, Elizabeth was the daughter of a farmer and a physical therapist. She grew up on the family farm with her sister, her horse and a clear desire to stretch her wings. As a teenager she served as the town's Fall Festival Queen and rode a float down Main Street in a long gown and tiara, offering her best Queen Elizabeth wave-an image her family holds especially dear.

After graduating from Exeter Union High School in 1984, she attended the UC Berkeley, graduating in 1988. She entered the technology industry, working at Oracle and later at Salesforce, where her gifts for organization, design and hospitality found expression in event planning and the creation of welcoming spaces. In time she fulfilled a long-held dream, moving to Healdsburg and opening a small mercantile store on the plaza with a dear friend. Her love of beautiful things led her on foraging expeditions across the country and through Europe, often in the company of family and friends.

Elizabeth was a titan in the working world whose rare ability to see final objectives through an artistic lens shaped everything she touched. That same gift of artistic expression animated her relationships, her professional life and her homes-visible in carefully chosen architecture and fixtures, in stylish clothing and objets d'art and in the comfortable gathering places she created. She sponsored adventures for those she loved, including her mother's champagne-tasting trip along the canals of France and countless dinners, lunches and brunches in San Francisco and Healdsburg. With her nieces Marian and Alice and her nephews Patrick and Pierce she marked each sixteenth birthday with a special adventure of their choosing. "What do you want to do today, people?" was her calling card; she approached every day as a tiger waiting to be tamed.

Her joy in travel was tempered only by her deep devotion to her ankle-licking Havanese, Shelby Miranda. If you knew Elizabeth, you knew and loved Shelby too.

She is survived by her mother, Mary Pat Pinkham; her sister, Dianne Pinkham Tully, and brother-in-law, Gwyn-Mohr Tully; her nieces Marian and Alice Tully and nephews Patrick and Pierce Tully; and her beloved Shelby. She was preceded in death by her father, Patrick Pinkham.

Extraordinary. Unique. One-of-a-kind. Friends, colleagues and family have long described Elizabeth's life in these terms. She was like a timeless piece of art-words only partially capture her spirit. As her late father, a Stanford man, used to say with fondness, "Not bad for an English major from Cal." Hear, hear, Elizabeth. Your life was a work of art, and you lived it to the fullest.

Published in Healdsburg Tribune · August 31, 2026