WOMAN OF THE YEAR: The Times honors Sarah Lim of the Merced County Courthouse Museum

By Jonathan Whitaker On Aug 3, 2023

Sarah Lim — the intelligent, enthusiastic and dedicated director of the Merced County Courthouse Museum — has been selected by the Merced County Times as “Woman of the Year” for 2023.

Not only is Lim considered to be an invaluable talent for the museum, and its preservation and promotion of local history, she is also an incredible resource for the Times and its reporters.

She’s friendly, approachable, helpful — and she charms just about everybody in town.

“Sarah is totally amazing,” says Kathleen Crookham, the former County Supervisor who helped hire her 21 years ago. “I firmly believe that she knows more about Merced County than anybody. She is extremely intelligent. She puts the pieces together. She stays on target. And yes, she has a cute personality that makes all of us feel special.”

Crookham adds, “The museum’s board members and volunteers would do anything for her, and who wouldn’t?”

One of those board members, Grey Roberts, recalls being impressed with Lim when she first came to work for the museum.

“She really liked the idea of putting up a variety exhibits throughout the year,” Roberts remembers. “I thought to myself, ‘This is perfect. This is exactly what we need.’”

Roberts credits Lim with increasing “by far” the number of exhibits that open inside the Courthouse Museum. He pointed out that most history museums in the Central Valley don’t have changing exhibits.

During her tenure, Lim has curated nearly 70 history exhibits. A majority of these exhibits — probably 95 percent — have been original productions of the Courthouse Museum. They include such titles as “Grazie America! From Italy to Merced County,” the “Ag Centennial Exhibit,” and “Merced’s 125th Anniversary,” just to name a few.

Lim has kept the focus on cultural diversity. Many of these original exhibits highlight the history of different ethnic groups and settlements.

“Sarah has produced a whole lot of wonderful exhibits on a variety of subjects,” Roberts says. “She has really covered a lot of territory.”

The praise from Roberts is noteworthy being that he serves on the board of the Merced County Historical Society and the Merced Theatre Foundation. He’s also a local history buff, collector, and member of a family with roots in Merced that date back to 1918.

Another local history fan that can’t say enough about Sarah Lim is noted resident Jim Cunningham.

“Sarah’s love of the Courthouse Museum is obvious,” Cunningham says. “She has a vision for the museum’s future and the ability to translate that vision into reality. She is respected by the people she works with, and has a great relationship with her board. Her ability to communicate helps to inspire and motivate others to see that the museum shows continued improvement and wants the museum to be an enjoyable and educational experience for all that visit. Sarah is a good decision maker, has great integrity, honesty, keeps a close eye on the museum budget and sets an example for others with her work ethic.”

**Sarah Lim announces awards for docents during the Courthouse Museum’s Volunteer Luncheon.**

Her Story

Sarah Lim has her own fascinating life history, and she has a fun way of telling it to a Times reporter, over lunch at Turmeric Indian Cuisine in north Merced.

She was actually born in Guangzhou, China, and grew up in the sprawling port city — one of the most populous in all of China. Among many things, it’s considered the home of traditional Cantonese cuisine.

Lim was a great student; however, it is “extremely difficult” to get into a “good” college in China. So when her family found the opportunity to immigrate to America, they jumped at the chance, in search of more educational opportunities.

Lim arrived in Chinatown, San Francisco, with her mother and youngest sister in 1990. She was almost 18, with some English-speaking abilities, but she needed help. She never finished high school in China, and her aunt told her she was too old to start high school in California.

“I tell people I was a high school dropout on two continents,” Lim says with a laugh that filled the restaurant.

Instead, Lim was sent to an adult school in North Beach where she enrolled in an ESL immersion program. A year later she was studying at City College of San Francisco, trying to get enough GE credits to transfer to a university. That’s when she met this guy: Vincent Andrade, a writing tutor. He was a student from the San Diego area who loved San Francisco and was thinking about pursuing a public interest law degree. Lim was in her early 20s, Andrade was a little older.

Long story short: They hit it off and started dating.

And sure enough, together they found their own ways: Andrade made it into law school, while Lim got accepted into the University of California at Berkeley, where she would eventually earn a degree in history.

When the idea of marriage sometimes came up, the ever-practical Lim would caution Andrade.

“I told him I wouldn’t marry him until he made it through law school, pass the bar, and got a job,” she giggles.

Well, it must have been love, because Andrade did just that.

One day, they both traveled to the Central Valley because Andrade had job interviews with the Public Defender offices in Stockton and Merced. When the couple arrived in Merced, Lim marveled at the small town, the beautiful trees with leaves that were changing color in the fall season, and the pleasant pace of life.

“I fell in love with the town,” she says. “It was beautiful. Who wouldn’t like this place?”

They had lunch on Main Street at the old Cinema Cafe. Lim remembers looking outside at the majestic palm trees, the Tioga Hotel, and the stately white building at the end of N street. Little did she know that historic building was the Merced County Courthouse Museum, a place that would impact her life in so many ways.

It wasn’t long before Lim found herself back in San Francisco, in the middle of Washington Square, with Saints Peter and Paul Church as a backdrop, when Andrade told her that he had accepted the offer in Merced. And then he asked: “Will you marry me?”

It was Election Night in 1996 (because Lim remembers historical dates like that, and she never missed an election after she became a U.S. citizen.) She said ‘Yes!’ to Andrade, while President Bill Clinton defeated challengers Bob Dole and Ross Perot by wide margins.

They were later married in a civil ceremony right on the steps of the Courthouse Museum in Merced, with none other than former Judge Bob Quall presiding, and Andrade’s Public Defender colleagues in attendance. She will never forget that day because it was June 6, 1997 (on the anniversary of D-Day). Surprisingly, at that point, Lim still hadn’t even entered the museum — one of the oldest historical buildings in California, built in 1875.

The newlyweds had two other wedding ceremonies: One in Chinatown with a banquet that attracted about 330 people, and another big Catholic one in San Marcos that was full of Andrade’s family members.

Lim would go on to research the American West and the history of Asian Americans in this region while studying for a masters degree at Stan State. During this time she finally became familiar with the Courthouse Museum and its historic archives. She was mentored early on by the likes of Dr. Nancy Taniguchi and Herb Wood, a longtime museum staffer.

After she earned her masters in 2000, she worked for bit in the private sector, traveling “all over the place” and writing historical perspectives about land use for environmental impact reports. Meanwhile, she also became a part-time archivist at the courthouse, a place she was increasingly being drawn to.

Opportunity arrived in 2002 when the position of museum director opened up. Museum leaders and county officials were impressed by Lim’s work ethic and decided to take a chance on her — and the rest, let’s say, is history!

“I love my job so much,” Lim says excitedly. “I have never looked for any other employment, or any type of promotion within the county departments.”

Her husband did get promoted though. Vincent Andrade is today the top Merced County Public Defender. The couple also raised two children, Evie and Gabby, and both have gone on to study at prestigious universities.

Lim admits her museum job was very difficult at first, and she candidly reveals that sometimes it brought her to tears in the early days, as she tried to make exhibits and projects more successful. She sought out guidance and support, and thankfully she found it with a few key staff members, and eventually up to 60 community volunteers she fostered.

“The most critical element of my job is working with different people and groups to collaborate on exhibits and projects. History is telling stories, and you want to hear those stories from various perspectives. You want to bring their voices to the exhibit. That’s really big. And it’s hard. People have different personalities, different interests, different perspectives, and different ways of presenting the story they want to tell.”

Another important aspect of Lim’s work is to preserve and document the history of Merced County. In doing so, she has edited more than 10 books which were published by the Merced County Historical Society. Some of the titles include “Greetings from Fountain City: Historic Postcards of Merced,” “Cooking in Merced County: A Taste of History,” and “Grazie America: From Italy to Merced County.”

She also works with regional organizations on the restoration of historic sites throughout Merced County.

But it’s the multiple community exhibits created every year that she finds the most rewarding.

“I hear children say, ‘Oh that’s my story’ or ‘That’s what my grandmother used to cook with,’ and it’s then that you realize history is real. And kids get excited learning about history.”

You can see a glitter in Lim’s eyes as she says, “Sometimes I see the kids outside looking at the courthouse, and they say ‘Oh it’s the White House,’ and I say, ‘Yes, it is the White House. It’s the people’s house. It’s your house. You don’t have to go to Washington DC to see the White House.”

Lim’s exhibits have produced fruitful partnerships with local elementary schools, high schools, as well as Merced College and UC Merced.

She tells the story of Devan Hinojosa who started volunteering with the museum as a young student in 2011. He helped Lim start up the museum’s Facebook page.

“He continued to volunteer, and all the while, it was so exciting to watch him graduate from high school, go to college, and then get hired by UC Merced, get married, and become a father.”

And of course, Lim has made long-lasting and deep friendships with the courthouse volunteers, many of whom are senior citizens looking to give back to the community and stay active.

“I don’t know how many times I have heard one of the volunteers tell me that this museum is like a second home. Sometimes they say, ‘This is my family.’ And we are a family. We provide a safe place for people to meet, and at the same time, to learn about their local history. It’s a great place to visit. And it’s even greater to be part of it all.”