Archives West Finding Aid

Nan Wood, daughter of C. E. S. Wood and Nanny Moale Smith, was born on July 15, 1881, in West Point, New York, where her father served as adjutant of the United States Military Academy. Two years later, her father resigned from the Army and moved the family to Portland, Oregon, to pursue a career in law.

Following graduation from St. Helen's Hall, Nan Wood studied at the Finch School in New York City. While attending a wedding, she met Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and developed a lasting friendship. In 1908, she married David Taylor Honeyman, an executive in his family's hardware firm in Portland, and together they had three children: Nancy, David, and Judith. She actively supported local charities and organizations as president of the Portland League of Women Voters, and a board member of Doernbecher Children's Hospital, the Oregon Mental Hygiene Society, the American Red Cross, and the Waverly Baby Home.

Nan Wood Honeyman's political involvement increased as her maternal duties waned. She chaired the Oregon division of the Woman's National Organization for Prohibition Reform, and in 1933, as president of the state constitutional convention, witnessed the ratification of the 21st Amendment and the end to Prohibition. She is best known, however, as the first woman to represent Oregon in Congress, serving Oregon's Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1937-1938. In her one term in Congress, she met and befriended another first-term congressman, Lyndon B. Johnson. Her congressional career was cut short when she was narrowly defeated for re-election by Republican Homer Angell, and she failed again to regain her seat in 1940. Nevertheless, she spent a lifetime cultivating her political connections and working for Democratic Party causes.

From 1941-1942, Honeyman served as the senior Pacific Coast representative of the U.S. Office of Price Administration, during which time she was also appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Oregon Senate. She resigned both posts to accept President Franklin D. Roosevelt's appointment as District 29 customs collector in Portland, a position she held for eleven years.

Late in life, she moved to Woodacre, California, where she died on December 10, 1970, leaving behind her brother Erskine Wood, son David Honeyman, daughter Nancy Robinson, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.