Barbara Pagni Denton

Growing up in a family of storytellers eager to share their tales of the "Old Country" and their emigration and assimilation experiences, Barbara grasped early on the importance of a well-crafted, well-told story to inform, teach, and entertain. Continuing this ancient tradition, she shares her intimate knowledge of the working women at the C&H Sugar refinery in Crockett, California, whose story had yet to be written. Barbara shares her first-hand experiences of what it was like to live in this small company town in the mid-twentieth century and work in this Bay Area industrial icon in the late 1960s, having lived most of her life in Crockett and working at the factory for two summers as a temporary summer hire while attending the University of California at Berkeley.

Pagni-Denton lives in Crockett, California, with her husband, Ed, in a century-old cottage with a view of the Carquinez Straits, steep cattle pasture lands, and the rural, winding, narrow two-lane road to Port Costa. A graduate of UC Berkeley and a retired healthcare designer, she is an avid baker, writer, and gardener. She can often be found taking her morning walk through the steep hills of Crockett or chatting with neighbors in her colorful front garden.