Collection is open for research.
Gifts of Homer J. E. Townsend, November 1998 and November 2000 (Lib. Acc. 23739; Lib. Acc. 24398, Photo Acc. 2001D025).
Mabel Altona Wood was born in 1896 in Palmer, Oregon. Later in her childhood, she lived in Troutdale, Oregon. After briefly teaching at Cedar School in Troutdale, she studied at Oregon Agricultural College (later Oregon State University), and then at Columbia University in New York. In 1932, she became head of the home economics department at the University of Oregon as assistant professor. She became a full professor in 1939, the first woman at the university to do so. Wood retired in 1966, and died in 1978. She requested that her remains be cremated, but did not plan for the disposition of her ashes. In September 1993, her ashes were interred in her family plot at the Douglass Cemetery in Troutdale.
Sources: Articles in the Oregonian: "Students Average High," July 13, 1924, Page 4; "Laboratory Planned for Homemaking," January 23, 1939, page 4; "4 Professors Plan Retirement," June 25, 1964, page 22; "Memorial set for pioneering UO professor," September 2, 1993, Oregonian, MetroEast, Neighbors section, page 2; article in the Oregon Daily Emerald (Eugene), May 31, 1946, page 6; vital records on Ancestry.com.
Homer J. E. Townsend was born in 1917 in Bakersfield, California. He served in the Navy during World War II, and studied at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He worked as a Presbyterian missionary and administrator in the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska. He also wrote histories, including biographical works about Mabel A. Wood. In the course of his research on Wood, Townsend discovered that, because she had not planned for the disposition of her ashes, they had remained unclaimed in a funeral home following her death. In 1993, he arranged for Wood's ashes to be buried in the family plot at Douglass Cemetery in Troutdale, Oregon.
Townsend married Alice Rice (1918-2005) in 1980. He died in 2008 in Gresham, Oregon.
Sources: "Memorial set for pioneering UO professor," September 2, 1993, Oregonian, MetroEast, Neighbors section, page 2; obituary in the Oregonian, March 14, 2008, page C08; vital records on Ancestry.com
Homer J. E. Townsend collection on Mabel A. Wood, Coll 948, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Photographs in this collection had previously been cataloged as the Mabel Wood photographs collection, Org. Lot 1000, but were reprocessed in February 2023 in order to add manuscript materials with shared provenance to the collection. The expanded collection was retitled and redesignated as Coll 948. Materials from Lib. Acc. 23739 were integrated into the collection in February 2025; during that processing, some materials were removed from plastic sleeves for preservation purposes.
Other materials at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library relating to Mabel A. Wood include the books "The China Letters of Mabel Wood," edited by Homer J. E. Townsend (Goldendale, Wash.: H.J.E. Townsend, 1986); and "Mabel Wood's Home Economics Scrapbook," edited by Homer J. E. Townsend (Goldendale, Wash.: H.J.E. Townsend, 1993).
The collection consists of correspondence, records, ephemera, and photographs relating to University of Oregon home economics professor Mabel A. Wood, created or gathered by Homer J. E. Townsend. The bulk of the collection consists of Townsend's biographical research on Wood, most of which is arranged in sections that largely correspond to the chronology of Wood's life. In addition to Townsend's notes and correspondence, this material includes original, photocopied, and transcribed papers and photographs of or relating to Wood and her family, including a photograph of Wood's parents, Isaac Wood and Minnie Wood, on their wedding day. Other materials consist of photographs, correspondence, notes, and newsletters concerning the 1993 interment of Wood's ashes in Troutdale, Oregon, which Townsend arranged; and a Troutdale Historical Society newsletter mentioning Townsend's work on a history of Troutdale's Cedar School, where Wood briefly taught.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.