Betty Reid Soskin, author, activist, and park ranger, celebrated

OAKLAND — Activist, writer, musician, trailblazer — all are words used to describe the late Betty Reid Soskin, the country’s oldest active National Park Service ranger, whose life was celebrated by loved ones and admirers Sunday.

Park ranger hats lined the stage of the Calvin Simmons Theater in Oakland’s Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, where more than 1,000 people gathered in honor of Soskin, who died at age 104 on Dec. 21.

Fame came to Soskin when she became a park ranger at age 85...