Washington Women's Heritage Project records, 1900-2000

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Washington Women's Heritage Project
Title
Washington Women's Heritage Project records
Dates
1900-2000 (inclusive)
1979-1996 (bulk)
Quantity
12.98 cubic feet (26 boxes)
Collection Number
3416 (Accession No. 3416-001)
Summary
Organizational material, correspondence, financial records, reports, exhibit/program development files, tape-recorded interviews, log of telephone calls, photographs, clippings, poster, oral history audio tapes and ephemera for a statewide grant project focused on women's lives in Washington State
Repository
University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Special Collections
University of Washington Libraries
Box 352900
Seattle, WA
98195-2900
Telephone: 2065431929
Fax: 2065431931
speccoll@uw.edu
Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access to paper-based materials. Access is restricted to some of the oral histories.

Portions of the collection can be accessed on the Libraries' Digital Collections website. No user access copies exist for most of the oral history interviews. Users may be able to obtain a reproduction of the interviews for a fee. Contact Special Collections for more information.

Request at UW

Languages
English

Historical NoteReturn to Top

The Washington Women’s Heritage Project (WWHP) was a statewide grant project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1980 to 1984. The project’s goal was to “stimulate public awareness and interest in the lives of women in Washington State, as well as to involve them in their respective communities, discovering and documenting their diverse heritage.” The project originated in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s when women’s history and women’s studies emerged as legitimate areas of study at many United States colleges and universities. The idea for this project originated with a graduate student in the history department at Western Washington University and was endorsed by Kathryn Anderson, a women’s studies professor in Western’s Fairhaven College.

The project was a statewide effort based at four regional centers. The Northwest center was located at Western Washington University which was also the administrative hub of the project. The project director, Kathryn Anderson, who coordinated the four offices and managed the grants was located at the NW center with Cynthia Cornell as the coordinator for the NW office. The Seattle center was located at the University of Washington with Susan Starbuck as its coordinator. Margot Knight coordinated the Eastern Washington center which was located at Washington State University in Pullman. The Southwest center of the project was coordinated by Laura O’Brady and was located at Evergreen State College in Olympia. Participation in this project went beyond the four offices affiliated with higher education to include many women’s groups, historical societies, and other community members interested in integrating women’s history into the traditional historical record.

The project resulted in a traveling exhibit (“Working and Caring”) that consisted of a photograph panel display, a corresponding brochure, and a slide-tape show. The photograph display consisted of twelve 4’x 8’ panels that each had a different theme. David Jensen designed and supervised the printing and layout of the panels so that the resulting exhibit allowed the “materials their greatest possible impact.” The photo display also consisted of a local panel for each display site which consisted of photos and text distinct to that location. This panel changed with each new stop of the tour.

The slide-tape show was a 13 1/2 minute production that combined 14 audio segments from the oral histories gathered as part of the project with over 130 photographs. The show portrayed three aspects of Washington women’s work: 1) housework, 2) wage work, and 3) community work. The themes were tied together with brief narration and an original song by Linda Allen entitled “Here’s to the Women.”

In order to create this exhibit the project staff collected photographs from around the state from archives, museums, and private collections. They trained over 300 people statewide how to conduct oral history interviews through a series of workshops and then utilized the resulting oral histories to document women’s history in Washington. These oral histories were conducted with women from a variety of backgrounds including immigrants, Native Americans, farm wives, factory workers, women with higher education, and women involved in civic activities. They also combed archival material to get information on women’s activities in clubs, public schools and politics.

The exhibit traveled to 31 different locations over a 2 year span. It was also featured at three national conferences in 1982-1983, thus allowing a large number of people to be exposed to women’s history in Washington State. In addition to the exhibit several scholarly papers, panels, and workshops developed out of the project.

“On Stage with Washington Women” was a one hour dramatic presentation based on letters, diaries, and oral histories of eastern Washington women. The Washington Commission for the Humanities provided funding, and Assistant Professor of History, Susan Armitage, directed the project. The play traveled with the "Working and Caring" photographic exhibit which was sponsored by the Washington Women's Heritage Project.

“Living Heritage: Curtain Call, Grandmother!” was a theatrical production featuring stories derived from women’s oral histories.

Sourced from: http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv69091/

Content DescriptionReturn to Top

Collection contains ephemera, press releases, financial records, correspondence, photographs, meeting minutes, writings, news clippings, and other manuscript materials related to the planning of the Washington Women’s Heritage Project and related projects including “Working and Caring” Exhibit, Washington Women’s Heritage Month, “On Stage with Washington Women”, and “Curtain Call, grandmother!”. Also contains oral history interviews (on cassette tapes) with 182 women from around Washington of all ages and backgrounds. The cassette tapes are arranged by interviewee last name.

Use of the CollectionReturn to Top

Alternative Forms Available

Portions of the collection can be accessed on the Libraries' Digital Collections website.

Restrictions on Use

Some restrictions exist on copying, quotation or publication. Contact Repository for details.

Administrative InformationReturn to Top

Processing Note

Processed by Terri Ball, 2018. All other Washington Women's Heritage accessions (-002, -003, -004, -007-02, -010) have been merged with this accession.

Oral history interview processing is ongoing as of December 2024, with 42 interviews (132 tapes) digitized by UW Libraries in 2023-2024. Some interviews have legacy WWHP transcripts, while most are being transcribed by Hannah Morrison (2024) and Taylor Hazan (2024) in UW Special Collections.

Acquisition Information

Washington Women's Heritage Project, 1982-08-25

Detailed Description of the CollectionReturn to Top

 

Series 1:  Project PlanningReturn to Top

Container(s) Description Dates
Correspondence
Box/Folder
1/1
University of Washington (UW) Special Collections regarding transfer of Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) Materials
1980-1982
1/2
Project Coordinators (Marsha Lash, Sarah Jacobus, Jill G. Smith, Susan Starbuck, and Ellen Jahoda)
1979
1/3
Project Coordinators (Marsha Lash, Sarah Jacobus, Jill G. Smith, Susan Starbuck, and Ellen Jahoda)
1980
1/4
Project Coordinators (Marsha Lash, Sarah Jacobus, Jill G. Smith, Susan Starbuck, and Ellen Jahoda)
1981
1/5
Project Coordinators (Marsha Lash, Sarah Jacobus, Jill G. Smith, Susan Starbuck, and Ellen Jahoda)
1982
1/6
Correspondence with Potential Interviewers/Interviewees
1980-1981
1/7
University of Washington (UW) Intracampus Correspondence
1980-1981
1/8
Congressman Mike Lowry regarding HJR 502
1980
1/9
Mailing Lists (Individuals)
1982
1/10
Mailing Lists (Organizations)
1982
Box
24
Card file
1980-1982
Administrative
Box/Folder
1/11
Seattle Office correspondence, budgets, and ephemera
1980-1981
1/12
Seattle Office Regional Report
1982
1/13
Bellingham Office correspondence, budgets, and ephemera
1980-1981
1/14
Bellingham Office Regional Report
1982
2/1
Olympia/Southwest Office correspondence, budgets, and ephemera
1980-1981
2/2
Olympia/Southwest Office Regional Report
1982
2/3
Pullman/Eastern Office correspondence, budgets, and ephemera
1980-1981
2/4
Pullman/Eastern Office Regional Report
1982
2/5
Job Descriptions and Applications
1980
2/6
School of Social Work Internships
1980
2/7
Susan Starbuck Bi-Weekly Reports
1980
2/8
Susan Stabuck Speaking Engagements
1981-1982
2/9
Letterhead
1980-1982?
Finances
Box/Folder
2/10
Letters of Inquiry
1974
2/11
Funding Sources
1977-1979
2/12
State Office of Historic Preservation Grant Proposal for "Northwest Women's Oral History Collection"
1979
2/13
Washington Mutual Savings Bank Foundation Grant Proposal for "Washington Women's Heritage Project"
1980
2/14
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant 1 Proposal for "Washington Women's Heritage Project"
1979
2/15
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant 1 Budget Proposal
1979
2/16
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant 2 Proposal for "Washington Women's Heritage Project"
1981
3/1
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Letters of Support
1979-1981
3/2
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Grant Extension
1981
3/3
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Correspondence
1980-1981
3/4
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Budget Summaries
1980-1982
3/5
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Final Report
1981
3/6
Human Subjects Review
1979-1981
Meetings
Box/Folder
3/7
Statewide Meetings
1979
3/8
Statewide Meetings
1980
3/9
Statewide Meetings
1981
3/10
"Eastern Washington Women: Our History and Heirtage" Pullman, WA Conference
1980
3/11
Exhibit Meeting
1980
3/12
Funding Concerns Meeting
1980
3/13
Oral History Workshops
1980-1981
3/14
Photo Skills Workshops
1980
Box
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) Meeting (Cassette Tape)
1980
Publicity
Box/Folder
3/15
Newsletters
1980-1982
3/16
Press Packet
3/17
Press Releases
3/18
Linda Allen Press Release
1982
3/19
Clippings about Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1980
3/20
Clippings about Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1980-1982
Ephemera
Box/Folder
3/21
Washington Women's Heritage Project Ephemera
1980-1982
Writings
Box/Folder
4/1
"Sociological Perspectives of Deaf Women" by Elizabeth Kricun
Report/thesis written as part of Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1998-2000
4/2
"Women Who Heal: The Path, Philosophies, and Practices of Four Washington Women in the Greater Seattle Area" by Nicole Mason
Report/thesis written as part of Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1993
4/3
"Washington Women's Heritage Projct: The Next Steps"
1982?
4/4
"Some Facts, But Mostly Feelings, About the Washington Women's Heriage Project" by Jill Smith
1980
4/5
"Woman Power for the Earth's Sake: Hazel Wolf's Childhood" by Susan Starbuck
1980?
4/6
"Women Have Always Worked" by Susan Starbuck (Northwest Passage)
1982
4/7
"The Heritage of Washington's Women" by Susan Starbuck (Landmarks)
1982
4/8
"New Slants on Old Stories" by Susan Starbuck (Puget Soundings)
1982
4/9
"Is There a History of Women?" by Carl N. Degler (Delivered before the University of Oxford)
1974
4/10
"Placing Women in History: A 1975 Perspective" by Gerda Lerner
1975
4/11
"My God, Teacher, I Can Read: An Anecdotal Account of Former Days in Washington's Schools" by Washington State Retired Teachers Association
1976
4/12
"What's So Special About Women? Women's Oral History" by Sherna Gluck
1977
4/13
"Should Old Acquaintances be Forgotten?" and "Sequel to the Continuing Indian Fishing War" by Janet McCloud
1978
4/14
"Bibliography for the Small Oral History Project" by Willa K. Baum
1978
4/15
"Women's Perspectives in Research" by Helga E. Jacobson (Atlantis)
1979
4/16
"One Woman's Song" by Rosalie Sorrels
1980?
4/17
"Researching Women in Early Seattle" by Irene Hrab
1980
4/18
"Now That I am Eighty" by Frances Meskimen
1980
4/19
"Women: Herstory in the Making" by Jane Cartwright
1980
4/20
"Bibliography of Women in Washington and Oregon" by Karen J. Blair
1980
4/21
"A Vision of Voluntarism" by Kurt Anderson (Time magazine)
1981
"Working and Caring" Exhibit
Box/Folder
4/22
Exhibit Format/Design Mockup
1980
4/23
Exhibit Design Manual
1981-1982
4/24
Exhibit Brochure Text by Sue Armitage
1981
4/25
"Here's to the Women" (Advertising Slide Tape)
1981
4/26
Requests for "Working and Caring" Exhibit
1982
4/27
Exhibit Forms Borrower Agreement
1982
4/28
Seattle Women's Timeline by Suzanne Hopkins
1981-1982
4/29
Exhibit Guide/Pamphlet
1982
4/30
Notes, Working Outlines, and Quotes on Women's Relationships
Themes include: Family, Women's Club movements, Single Women, Childbirth, Mothers,
1980-1981
4/31
Notes, Working Outlines, and Quotes on Women in the Workplace
Themes include: Women in the Arts, Domestic Labor, Factory Work, Logging and Farming, World War II Work, Early/Non-Traditional Work, Work in the Home, Pioneer Life, Homesteading, Laundry workers.
1980-1981
5/1
Notes, Working Outlines, and Quotes on Asian, Black, and Chicano Women
Themes include: Work and Relationships
1980-1981
5/2
Notes, Working Outlines, and Quotes on Native American Women
Themes include: Community Service, Native American Work, Native American Relationships,
1980-1981
5/3
Notes, Working Outlines, and Quotes on Self Assessment
Themes include: Women's Sense of Self
1980-1981
5/4
Local Exhibit Panels
1980-1981
5/5
Planned Parenthood Exhibit Panel
1980-1981
5/6
Information on Eva Anderson
1980
5/7
Information on Marthe Barnett
1981
5/8
Information on Blanche Osborn Bloss
1980-1981
5/9
Information on Martha Giles ("Women Working: A Family History of Five Generations" by Dorothy F. Burr)
1980
5/10
Information on Bodil W. Campbell
1982
5/11
Information on Caroline Starr by Lillian Clark Canzler
1980
5/12
Information on Clara Killmore Wasson
1978-1980
5/13
Information on Alice Ray Gleason
1980-1981
5/14
Information on Mary Randle McMahon
1980-1981
5/15
Information on Ida Olivia Meacham Richardson by Mrs. Victor E. Richardson
1980
5/16
Information on Mary Ford Tozer
1980
5/17
Bellevue Exhibit
1980-1982
5/18
Bremerton Exhibit
1980-1982
5/19
Chimacum Exhibit
Includes: Guestbook
1980-1982
5/20
Seattle Exhibit
Includes: Guestbook
1980-1982
5/21
Tacoma Exhibit
1980-1982
5/22
"Washington Women Make History: The Women's Volunteer Movement" with Video Presentations Incorporated
1981
Box
25
University of Washington Allen Library Exhibit Poster
1982
25
YWCA Exhibit (Seattle) Poster
1982
Box/Folder
5/23
King TV Promotional package
1981
5/24
Notes on Photographs included in Exhibit
1980-1981
5/25
Photograph Reproduction Records
1981-1982
5/26
Photograph Loan Records
1982
5/27
Exhibit Photographs (Boeing)
1930-1982
5/28
Exhibit Photographs (Asian Women)
From the Elizbaeth Burke Collection
1950s
5/29
Exhibit Photographs (Relationships)
From the Dorothy Burr Private Collection
1930-1945
5/30
Exhibit Photographs (African American Women)
From the Rena Cooness Private Collection
1880-1920
5/31
Exhibit Photograph (Hazel Doran)
1980
5/32
Exhibit Photographs (Work/Industry)
From the Historical Society of Seattle and Museum of History and Industry
1940s
5/33
Exhibit Photographs (Work)
From the Frances Meskimen Private Collection
1946
5/34
Exhibit Photographs (Chicano Women - Photocopies)
From the Northwest Chicano Health Center
1980
5/35
Exhibit Photographs (Native American Women)
From the Winona Webber Collection
1900
5/36
Exhibit Photographs (Mother Joseph)
1980
5/37
Exhibit Photographs (Hpioneers/Homestading)
From the Richard Phelps Private Collection
1880-1910
6/1
Exhibit Photographs (Work/Pacific Northwest Bell)
From the Lynn Jordan and Mike Jordan Private Collection
N.D.
6/2
Exhibit Photographs (Work)
From the Eleanore Ploger Private Collection
1944
6/3
Exhibit Photographs (Office Work)
From the Joyce Rantz Private Collection
1911
6/4
Exhibit Photographs (Work/Postal Work)
From the Helen Remick Private Collection
1903-1904
6/5
Exhibit Photographs (Work/Postal Work)
From the Ethel Rorrison Private Collection
1915-1920
6/6
Exhibit Photographs (Eva Wagner)
From Carol Christianson Collection
1900-1923
6/7
Exhibit Photographs (Sewing)
From the Washington State University Library
1913
6/8
Exhibit Photographs (Whatcom Museum of History and Art)
N.D.
6/9
Exhibit Photographs (Jeanie Shaw Wheeler)
1897-1980
6/10
Exhibit Photographs (YWCA)
From the Jim Krupke Private Collection
1921
6/11
Exhibit Photographs (Seattle Regional Negatives)
N.D.
6/12
Exhibit Photographs (Slides)
N.D.
6/13
Exhibit Photographs (Misc)
N.D.
Box
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) Exhibits Meeting (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) Exhibits Meeting (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) "Here's to the Women" Slide Tape Audio (Cassette Tape)
1980-1981
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) "Here's to the Women" Slide Tape Audio (Cassette Tape)
1980-1981
23
Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP) Show at International Women's Day Festivities (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
Slide Show (Cassette Tape)
N.D.
Washington Women's Heritage Month
Box/Folder
6/14
Wa State Governor (John D. Spellman) Proclamation
1981
6/15
Planning Committee Personnel and Meetings
1981
6/16
Curriculum Planning Sub-Committee
1981
6/17
Journal Writing Workshops
1981-1982
6/18
Linda Allen Performance
1981-1982
Box
23
Linda Allen Audio Recording (Cassette Tape)
1980-1982
23
Linda Allen Audio Recording (Cassette Tape)
1980-1982
Box/Folder
6/19
Community Groups
1981-1982
6/20
Invitations
1981-1982
6/21
Publicity
1981-1982
6/22
International Women's Day March
1982
6/23
Washington Women's Heritage Month Ephemera
Events include: including: "Women of Cornish" (Cornish Institute), "Women's Noon Film Series", "Women Reflecting: A Seven Year Cycle", "Voices of American Women: A History in Stories and Song", "Curtain Call, Grandmother!" (Museum of History and Industry), "Our Arts in Perspective" (Museum of History and Industry), "Women's Heritage Series" (Museum of History and Industry), "The Northwet's First Lady" (Sisters of Providence).
1981-1982
"On Stage with Washington Women"
Box/Folder
26/1
Washington Commission for the Humanities Grant Proposal for "On Stage with Washington Women"
1980
26/2
"On Stage with Washington Women" Script
1981
"Curtain Call, Grandmother!"
Box/Folder
26/3
Washington Commission for the Humanities Grant Proposal for "Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!"
1981
26/4
"Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!" Correspondence
1981-1982
26/5
"Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!" Budget Report
1981
26/6
"Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!" Final Report
1983-1984
26/7
"Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!" Script
1982
26/8
"Living Heritage: Women's Stories from Western Washington - Curtain Call, Grandmother!" Posters
Related Projects and Events
Box/Folder
6/24
"All My Somedays: A Living Heritage Project" by Pierce County Library
Includes handwritten notes from Esther Mumford Oral History by Ron Manheimer
1982
6/25
"Good Work, Sister!" y Norhtwest Women's History Project
1981
6/26
"New Image of Aging: Becoming a Whole Person" by Helen Ansley
1978
6/27
"Surviving the Great Depression on the Olympic Pennisula" by Jane Gibbons
1982
6/28
"Political Pioneers: The Lawmakers" by Elected Washington Women
1981
6/29
"Women in Colorado: Hidden Faces" by the State Historical Society of Colorado
1977
6/30
"Women Reflecting: A Seven Year Cycle" by Mark Dworkin
1982
6/31
Women's History Week
1981
6/32
Women's History Week Ephemera
1980-1982
Box
23
Inez Spadoni Elford - Autobiographies of Women" (Cassette Tape)
1975
23
Women 490 B Class taughter by Sarah Jacobus (Cassette Tape)
1979
23
"Women in Colonial Revolutionary America" presentation by Richard Johnson, part of "Women in History" series (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
"Black Women in 19th Century Seattle" presentation by Esther Mumford, part of "Women in History" series (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
"Black Victorians" presentation by Esther Mumford, part of "Women in History" series (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
"Black Women in Modern America" presentation by Allethia Allen, part of "Private Lives/Public Lives" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Women and Politics: Functioning in the Patriarchal Tradition" presentation by Lynn Iglitzen, part of "Private Lives/Public Lives" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Evolving Jobs: Alternative Perspective on Career Mobility of Women in High Education" presentation by Suzanne Estler, part of "Private Lives/Public Lives" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Career Plans of College Women: Patterns and Influences" presentation by Marsha Brown, part of "Private Lives/Public Lives" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"A Filipina Case History" presentation by Dorothy Cordova, part of "Private Lives/Public Lives" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Women in World War II" featuring Mary Francis Phillips and Charlotte Thomas Morgans, part of "Women's History Week" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Women in World War II" featuring Frances Meskimen, Eleanore Plodger, Mary Francis Phillips, and Charlotte Morgans, part of "Women's History Week" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
"Educator's Panel" featuring Sally Pangborn, Eleanor Ahlers, Miriam Burton, and Gladys Perry, par tof "Women's History Week" series (Cassette Tape)
1981
23
Eastern Washington Women's Conference Diaries and Letters (Cassette Tape)
1980
23
Mrs. Johnny-Seabeck (Cassette Tape)
1999
Box/Folder
25/2
"Private Lives, Public Lives" Poster
1981

Series 2:  Oral HistoriesReturn to Top

Container(s) Description Dates
Box/Folder
6/33
"A Handbook for Life History Research" by Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1982
6/34
"A Select Bibliography on Women's History" by Washington Women's Heritage Project (WWHP)
1980
6/35
Blank Forms and Form Letters
1980-1982?
6/36
Suggested Questions for Native American Interviews ("State-wide Indian Interviews")
1981
7/1
List of Interviews
1979-1981
7/2
Adams, Julia
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979-1980
7/3
Alexander, Lavinia
1 tape
Biographical Note: Lavinia Alexander is an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, but has predominantly Spokane heritage. She was born in Tekoa, Washington, spent some of her early years in Spokane, and was relocated to the Coeur d’Alene Reservation as a child. She attended parochial school and returned to school as a mature student to complete her GED. Lavinia raised six children, working primarily as a migratory farmworker, and also spent four years in Chicago after signing up with the Urban Relocation Act in 1960. Later in life, she became an “Indian cultural specialist” under Title IV, traveling around Washington and Idaho to teach Indigenous culture and provide food demonstrations.
Sope and Content Note: On tape 1, side 1, Lavinia describes her early life in Spokane and De Smet, as well as her tribal affiliation and the politics of blood quantum. She talks about her beading practice, the division of labor between men and women, and the work her mother and grandmothers did to support their families. She details the trading practices between Coeur d’Alene, Nez Perce, and Yakima tribes, as well as their techniques for drying salmon. She also describes attending parochial school and returning to school as an adult to get her GED and a nurse’s aid certificate. She also begins discussing the four years she spent in Chicago as part of the Urban Relocation Program. On tape 1, side 2, Lavinia goes into more detail about the Urban Relocation Program and her life in Chicago. She also describes living with her parents well into adulthood because she was too young to have received an allotment of land from the government. She also became an Indigenous educator in the school system, where she taught about Indigenous history, culture, practices, and foods. She spends time discussing “sxusem” (her language) or “Indian ice cream” (a term likely created by white settlers), the treat made by whipping up foam berry juice. They close the conversation discussing salmon and sturgeon fishing.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
CONTENT WARNING: One of the speakers in this oral history uses dated language that is considered harmful today.
1980
7/4
Aliesan, Jody
5 tapes
Biographical Note: Jody Aliesan, born JoAnne Armstrong in 1943, was a poet, writer, and activist in the Pacific Northwest from 1970 until her death in 2012. She published eleven books of poetry and countless poems in regional, national, and international publications. Aliesan was active in numerous political and social movements, including the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the second-wave feminist movement in the 1970s, and the peace movement from the 1960s to the 2000s. She was an active supporter of equal rights for all and advocated for environmental preservation and sustainability, both in the Pacific Northwest and on a global scale.
Scope and Content Note: The first side of tape 1 includes a description of her early childhood, including her loneliness as a child and tension with her family members that continued through her adulthood. She also mentions her identity as a poet. Side 2 of tape 1 discusses her adult life, with a particular framing on her development of resilience through depression and a series of difficult times in her life. She describes teaching in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement, protesting the Vietnam War, and her understanding of her life’s purpose through the “assignments” she receives. Side 1 of tape 2 focuses on her identity as a girl and young woman, including her menstruation story, menopause, gendered experiences of childhood, sexism, and solidarity with the girls she grew up with. The second side of tape 2 discusses her college and graduate education, as well as her activism. She describes her transition to the women’s liberation movement as a result of a Vietnam Moratorium Committee fundraiser at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, her eventual move to Seattle and involvement in feminist activism at the University of Washington and Seattle more broadly. Side 1 of tape 3 discusses her activism work and PhD in more detail, as well as her career as a singer of women’s music, and the tape possibly features (muffled) racist language when she describes a conversation with her father about the Civil Rights movement. Side 2 of tape 3 focuses on her activist work in Chicago and subsequent move to Seattle and the activism she participated in there. Side 1 of tape 4 discusses her work as a poet, musician, and student, including the sexism she faced in academia. Side 2 of tape 4 discusses a period in her early twenties when she travelled alone for a publishing company and her entanglements with men, as well as her sexual and romantic history. Side 1 of tape 5 features reflections on her previous relationships, development of her sexual identity, and her relationships with her parents. Side 2 of tape 5 begins with a discussion of her astrological chart and how it relates to her life, as well as her reflections on mortality and purpose in life.
Interviewer: O'Grady, Julie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
CONTENT WARNING: One of the speakers in this oral history uses dated language that is considered harmful today.
1996
7/5
Alldredge, Etta
5 tapes
Alldredge is a grocer, grandmother. Interviewed by Stephanie Holan. Alldredge discusses her childhood on the family farm in Rice, WA, attending a one-room log cabin school house, childhood sports and music lessons, family relationships and activities, meeting her husband Ward and both homesteading in MT and running a store with him, living all over WA to follow Ward’s jobs, raising three daughters and their lives and marriages, Ward’s death, her grandchildren, her brothers’ deaths, and moving in with her granddaughter.
Interviewer: Holan, Stephanie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
7/6
Anderson, Margaret
3 tapes
Margaret Anderson is a Canadian, but has lived in the U.S. since she entered graduate school at Smith. She is a lesbian, a reformed alcoholic, and a social worker. She moved to Seattle in 1982. Her life history was done for Women Studies 374.
Interviewer: Boughton-Morin, Kristin
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
7/7
Ansley, Helen Green
3 tapes
Helen G. Ansley was born 1900. She was active in the United World Federalists, Unitarian Church and League of Women Voters in Cleveland and Berkeley. Since moving to the Seattle area, she has been involved in projects for senior citizens.
Interviewer: Ryan, Debra
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
7/8
Aoki, Mary
2 (+ Duplicates) tapes
Mary Aoki was born in the U.S. of Japanese parents. They lived in Caucasian neighborhoods and Mary attended public schools and Japanese School. In 1936 when she was 11 her parents sent her wtih her sister Ruth to Japan to attend school. They were in Japan when the war started, and were unable to return until 1947. Her parents were relocated to Minidoka and were unable to communicate with them. The interview discusses family life and traditional customs, her experiences in Japan 1940-1947, hardships, school, bombing, her loyalties and her father's loyalties during the war, and seeing Hiroshima after the bombing. Their efforts to return to the U.S. after the war were aided by friendly American G.I.s.
Interviewer: Smith, Jill G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979
7/9
Armstrong, Olive
4 tapes
Armstrong discusses life in the Finnish communities of Black Diamond and Seattle.
Interviewer: Greiner, Linda G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
7/10
Arnold, Madelyn
7 tapes
Person with AIDS, lesbian. Interviewed by Helen Best. Arnold discusses her parents, falling in love with her female math tutor and the consequences thereof, her heroin addiction and working as a prostitute, escaping from a mental institution, her involvement with the women’s and gay liberation movements, living with her lover Anne in Seattle, studying biology at Indiana University and Creative Writing at the UW, teaching English at the UW, her break-up with Anne, her alcohol problem, working with AIDS patients at Harborview Medical Center and contracting HIV there, and living with AIDS and the resultant brain lesions.
Interviewer: Best, Helen
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
7/11
Baggerly, Florence Miller
1 tape
Florence Baggerly is a Tulalip Indian born in 1936. Baggerly discusses family life, berry picking, canning, wool spinning, religion, education, racial attitudes and extended families.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
Box
missing
Bailey, Elizabeth
2 tapes
The second cassette has Elizabeth Bailey and Leona Ward on one side. It may or may not be an excerpt from the other tapes. A copy of an interview conducted by WWU Heritage Project.
Interviewer: Anderson, Kathryn
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
Box/Folder
7/12
Bark, Lois
2 tapes
Lois Bark has been a medical technician and a docent at the Museum of History and Industry. At MOHAI, she has also been Director of education, coordinator of volunteer services, and costume curator.
Interviewer: Grammona, Mary
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1983
7/13
Barr, Maggie Daniels
1 tape
Maggie Barr is a Muckleshoot; her mother was a "breed." In her interview she discusses family life, carding and spinning wool, "Stick Indians," her work at Todd Shipyard during WWII, her children and how she raised them like white people, and her sons' war service.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
7/14
Bergamini, Sister Rita
2 tapes
Sister Rita Bergamini was born July 16, 1921 in Martinez, California. She graduated from Providence College of Nursing in 1942 and entered the Sisters of Providence the same year. She has served as a nurse and a nursing administrator, been active in the American League of Nursing and Catholic Nurses Association. She is currently Archivist for the Sacred Heart Sisters of Providence Archive in Seattle. Bergamini discusses her family background, her nursing studies, her decision to enter the Sisters of Providence, Mother Joseph and the history of the order, life in the order and how it has changed, her post-graduate education, and her work as archivist for Sacred Heart. Included is a copy of Bergamini's bibliography of Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a sister of Providence, and a "photo feature" from the 1980 dedication of the statue of Mother Joseph in Washington, D.C.
Interviewer: Ehlers, Susan Lynn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
7/15
Berkeley, Katherine Sheldon
1 tape
Katherine Berkeley is part Tulalip, part white. Berkeley discusses her family life, Indian funerals, extended families, her two husbands and how she raised her 13 children. She also discusses her mother's activities, including her wool sock business and her Shaker meetings.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
7/16
Bianchi, Kathleen
2 tapes
Alcohol and drug user, waitress, mother. Interviewed by Paige K. Fortner. Bianchi discusses her childhood in Catholic school and becoming a “street kid” at 13, being “burned out” at 17, her drug use, marriages, abuse by her husband, her children and their abuse by her husband, and the lack of racial tension in her most successful marriage.
Interviewer: Fortner, Paige
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
7/17
Bianchi, Susan Quant
6 tapes
Miss Washington Pageant trainer, mother. Interviewed by Linda C. Meuter. Bianchi discusses her childhood love of music, social activities in high school, parents’ alcoholism, relationship with her sister, marriage, miscarriages, weight gain, her husband’s teaching and fishing careers, working with Chicano teens and in beauty pageants, adopting two sons, friendships, her son’s illnesses, her dramatic weight loss, skiing with the family, racism directed at both her son and her as a white woman who adopted a black child, and being “in charge” of her life. She speaks of her own cancer only peripherally.
Interviewer: Meuter, Linda C.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
26/9
Bianchi, Susan Quant
6 tapes
Photographs of Susan Quant Bianchi
Interviewer: Meuter, Linda C.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
7/18
Biehn, Jeanne Ellen Vercoutere
4 tapes
Jeanne Biehn was born Feb. 10, 1928 in Marshall, Minnesota, a town mainly of Belgian immigrants. Her parents were Belgian. She attended St. Catherine's Girl's College, then worked as a stewardess until her marriage to Donald Biehn in 1950. After marriage she worked part time as a model in Seattle, then became involved with Clipped Wings, a service organization. She has 3 sons. After her husband's death she became a Jetfoil stewardess and currently words in a restaurant. Interview discusses her family background including emigration from Belgium, family life and traditional customs, Marshall, Minnesota, her father's general store, her education, World War II and its effect on her town, her experiences as a stewardess, her marriage, childbirth and raising children, her husband's death and her adjustments.
Interviewer: Ehlers, Susan Lynn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980-1981
7/19
Bilimoria, Eleanor Danner
6 tapes
Eleanor Danner Bilimoria (1909- ) lived in India in the 1940s and 50s. She became involved in the Coalition Task Force on Women and Religion and other women's causes.
Interviewer: Gallery-Fox, Elizabeth
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
7/20
Binyon, Saranel
3 tapes
Psychic, hypnotherapist. Interviewed by Katherin Hervey. Binyon discusses her relationship with her grandmother, her early discovery of her psychic abilities, school, marriage, teaching high school English, raising children, neurofeedback therapy, divorce, modeling, raising horses, learning hypnotherapy, drug legalization, her children’s marriages, feminism, past lives, women’s place in society, spirituality, menopause, and UFO sightings.
Interviewer: Hervey, Ketherin
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
7/21
Black, Beatrice Pullen
2 tapes
Biographical Note: Beatrice Black is part of the Quileute tribe and grew up in an all-Native American area. Her family homesteaded on Goodman Creek and then moved to La Push when she was nine so that Beatrice could start government-mandated school. Her father was a fur seal hunter and line fisherman. They spoke Quileute at home. Her maternal grandfather was part Imaquois(?) and she received an Imaquois(?) name when she was 15. Her family dug and dried clams, canned and prepared food (including berries) during the winter, and celebrated events at a local longhouse. Beatrice attended successful Shakes growing up, including one that cured her, and became a part of the Indian Shaker Church herself when she was 17. Beatrice’s first time out of La Push was to go to Seattle for her honeymoon and attend the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition there. She moved to Taholah with her husband for his job and they got a Ford car there in 1918.
Scope and Content Note:On tape 1, side 1, Beatrice recalls her childhood on a homestead near La Push. As a child, she enjoyed walking to the ocean and through the woods. Beatrice describes how she came about her names; the non-Indigenous residents of La Push influenced her “Beatrice Black” name and she got her Indigenous name from her grandparents in a ceremony when she was 15. Beatrice recalls the ways her family would obtain and preserve food, including berries, and she claims that Native Americans never went hungry from all the wild food to eat. She remembers children’s ways of mischief in her day, and longhouse in Taholah and parties in her community. Tape 1, side 2 touches on Beatrice’s involvement in the Indian Shaker Church, including witnessing a cure for a child and later being cured herself by a shake. She became part of the Shaker religion when she was 17, and describes how confession happens in church. Beatrice recalls moving to Taholah for her husband’s job and owning a car in 1918. Tape 2, side 1 gives more information about Beatrice’s childhood and her marriage. She spoke Quileute at home and didn’t attend school until she was nine years old. Beatrice’s mother taught her basketweaving. During Beatrice’s childhood, the only transportation available was canoe. She recalls drying clams and hook and line fishing with her father, a fur seal hunter and fisherman. Beatrice relates that her first time outside of La Push was her honeymoon in Seattle, where they saw the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Her brother was performing in it as a seal hunter. Beatrice’s marriage was arranged, and she describes age expectations for women regarding marriage.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
Tape 2 may be a separate interview or recorded prior to Tape 1, based on content.
1981
7/22
Bouillon, Erna Dora Meerscheidt
5 tapes
The interview discusses Bouillon's family background (German: Von Rosenberg and Meerscheidt), her home life in San Antonio, in Germany where she attended boarding school, and on Mercer Island, her marriage to Harold Weeks and their children, her work as an interior designer after Weeks died (including design for Gamma Phi Beta House and University of Washington Presidents), her second marriage and their travels. She discusses new friends, teachers, and the Home Economics Department at the University of Washington (which was new when she attended) and her illnesses.
Interviewer: Ehlers, Susan Lynn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
7/23
Bowers, Delphine
5 tapes
Therapist. Interviewed by Jenny Kurzweil. Bowers discusses her mother’s death in childbirth and being raised by nurses, relatives, and her step-mother, moving to the Philippines with her father and her home- and boarding-school there, living (separate from her parents) during WWII in a Japanese civilian internment camp in Baguio, Philippines and the conditions there, returning to America and attending finishing school, moving to Washington and attending the UW as a microbiology major, her marriage to Jack and his homosexuality and alcoholism, raising four children, working as a telephone survey researcher, divorce, lack of emotional intimacy in her life, living in Bellevue, graduate studies in social work, her depression and meditation, becoming a therapist, traveling around the world, and her synagogue support group.
Interviewer: Kurzweil, Jenny
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
7/24
Brand, Esther Gertrude Garske
3 tapes
Mrs. Brand, a homemaker, describes her life in the Wallingford district where she has lived since she was a young girl.
Interviewer: Reed, Robert
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
7/25
Brown, Janet Askren
3 tapes
Mrs. Brown was a teacher for 20 years. After her retirement from teaching she tutored immigrants. Before she became a teacher she worked at Sears, at a war plant, and as a typist.
Interviewer: Gates, Deborah
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
7/26
Brown, Judith Grace Keyser
2 tapes
Biographical Note: Judith Keyser was born August 23, 1944 in Warwick, NY. She attended college in Albany, studied Art and English, moved to California, lived in Haight Ashbury in 1966, met and married Evan Brown in 1967, and moved to Seattle. They had a son, Damon, in 1970. She worked to support the family and after 10 years they separated. At the time of interviewing, she was a graduate student at UW.
Scope and Content Note:On tape 1, side 1, Judith says that she grew up visiting both sets of grandparents in New Jersey every Sunday. Her father’s parents were Dutch immigrants and strawberry farmers. Her mother’s mother had a strong Cockney accent, and her mother’s father worked on railroads. Judith states that her parents were “unhappy people” and expresses her opinion that the women in her family were strong but unfulfilled. Judith’s sister Caroline was 10 years older than her and acted as a maternal figure. Judith describes her small town of Warwick, New Jersey and remembers giving up on her ambitions to be an actress in response to a negative astrological prediction. Her mother was also interested in astrology. Judith recalls her family throwing a party for her when she got her first period, and taking part in activism in college. Tape 1, side 2 and tape 2, side 1 cover similar topics. Judith moved to California with a female friend after college. She describes meeting and marrying her husband, Evan Brown, in San Francisco and her job at the time at the Greyhound bus station while her husband was a student at San Francisco State University. The couple moved to New York, then Seattle, where Judith had their son, Damon. Judith details the pressure she felt to work and support her family up until her separation with Evan after 10 years. She discusses the division of parental responsibility with her husband, and her post-separation arrangement with Evan, which involves him paying for her to attend graduate school at the time of the interview. Tape 2, side 1 includes Judith’s thoughts on marriage, graduate school, books, and mentors. She shares about seeing omens and good luck symbols all the time and feeling that superstition controls her life. She says her beliefs run in the family, and that she thinks her mother and grandmother were witches. Judith describes making love potions for her friends and shares success stories from them.
Interviewer: Plumridge, Jerrilyn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
7/27
Burgess, Diana
4 tapes
African-American single mother, Community College Program Assistant. Interviewed by Allison Card. Burgess discusses her childhood in Washington, Pennsylvania, her friendship with her cousin Michael, her and her siblings' abuse by her father, her short relationship with Bill, her experience of racial segregation, living with her sisters and their children, meeting, marrying, and divorcing James, raising two sons on her own (one from Bill and one from James), working at the Washington Hospital and leaving for Seattle when her hours were cut, working in a nursing home and earning her Associate of Arts degree at Tacoma Community College, working as a program assistant at Green River Community College, her sons’ successes, and her granchildren.
Interviewer: Card, Allison
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
7/28
Bush, Wilma Adams
1 tape
Wilma Bush is a Twana-Skokomish Indian. Bush discusses her education at various schools, including the Phoenix logging camp and Chemawa; her grandmother, who was a Lummi, and her grandmother's herbal medicines and "Indian ice cream" made from berries. She also discusses moving between Oregon and Washington with her family.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
8/1
Butler, Patricia Louise
4 tapes
African-American UW Student Counselor. Interviewed by Antoinette M. Johnson. Butler discusses her education-centered and disciplined childhood, experience of racism, her childhood family relationships, socializing at the church as a teenager, having twins, being a nurse and a manager at the Odessa Brown company, earning her Bachelor’s degree, her relationship with her children, becoming an employee at the UW and eventually a student counselor, her good relationship with her husband, and middle age.
Interviewer: Johnson, Anoinette M.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
8/2
Buxton, Lindsay
6 tapes
Indian, Tlingit activist. Interviewed by Debbie Guerrero. Buxton discusses her childhood illness and abuse, Catholic education, parents’ drinking problems, being abandoned, foster homes, living with her mother and their activities, dancing, debates with her father, traveling to Alaska, poverty, learning “what it meant to be Indian”, investigating Catholicism and Buddhism, her marriage and her husband’s death, motherhood, being involved in “Indian legal issues” and a leader in the American Indian community, taking pride in her Indian identity, her spirituality, menopause, relationships with her children, her brother’s suicide, and her son’s cancer.
Interviewer: Guerrero, Debbie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
8/3
Caldwell, Shirley
5 tapes
Labor and women’s rights activist, lesbian. Interviewed by Lisa Dady. Caldwell discusses her ancestors, admiring the men in her family, her WWII homefront experiences, having “crushes on girls” in high school, working at the Seattle Times, involvement in the Newspaper Guild and fighting sexism there, working with Seattle Labor organizations, her relationships with her friends, especially Claudia, “how closeted lesbians and gays were in the early days”, her interest in the military, seeing a psychiatrist, developing “feminist consciousness”, traveling to Europe, her “notorious apartment” where women met in the ‘80s, lesbian social relations and strata in the 50’s and 60’s, police raids on gay bars, working on democrats’ political campaigns, and how she enjoys her retirement.
Interviewer: Dady, Lisa
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
8/4
Campbell, Bodil Wiel
4 tapes
Teacher, basketball coach. Married women were not allowed to work as teachers, so her career ended when she married a school principal. Seattle Teacher's Union was organized in their home. Bodil "Bo" Cambpell is an activist in many projects on behalf of the elderly. She now lives at Four Freedoms House and is a member of Church of the People.
Interviewer: Mason, Cameron
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1983
8/5
Canter, Frieda
4 tapes
Frieda Canter was formerly a needle worker and cook. Canter describes her family life as a Russian Jew and as a Chicagoan and her and her husband's involvement in the Communist Party in Chicago.
Interviewer: Hacker, Melissa
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1983
8/6
Carlton, Olive Milbourse
7 tapes
WWII veteran. Interviewed by Barbara Wright. Milbourne talks some about her childhood among the English nobility and her early accomplishment as a singer, but the bulk of her discussion is about her experiences in WWII: as a civilian in Belfast, and as a WAC in France, Belgium, and Germany. Then moving to America after the war, her wedding, discharge from the army, having children and raising them on her own, living in Texas and then Washington, near-death experiences, her son’s dyslexia, and working in a nursing home.
Interviewer: Wright, Barbara
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
8/7
Carson, Miriamma Mae
2 tapes
Women’s health care specialist, socialist. Interviewed by Kirsten Anderberg. Carson briefly discusses her childhood in Peru, but spends the most time discussing her work in women’s health clinics in California and Seattle, her involvement in the women’s rights movement, her three marriages, and her views on politics (socialism, capitalism, and America since WWII).
Interviewer: Anderberg, Kirsten
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
8/8
Castillo, Obdulia Rigor
7 tapes
"Dolly" Castillo grew up in the Philippines and came with her husband to the U.S. in 1967. She worked in a factory and a nursing home and also taught physical education and served as a multi-ethnic curriculum specialist for the Seattle School District. She has been an active member of the Philipino community.
Interviewer: Altiveros, Millet
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
8/9
Chappell, Lillian Iyall
1 tape
Chappell's mother was half Snohomish and her father was Cowlitz and Yakima. The family moved to the Nisqually Reservation when she was 2. Lillian moved to Seattle when she was 22. Chappell discusses family life, education, racial prejudice, her family's isolation, her non-Indian childhood friends, visiting relatives in Eastern Washington, kinship system, her father, mother and her mother's garden.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
8/10
Charley, Freda Strom
1 tape
Biographical Note: Freda Charley was born in 1909 in Taholah. Her father was a Swede who fished with nets. Her mother was a midwife and prepared bodies for burial; she never attended school but “knew how to do everything” and spoke three languages. Freda attended Chemawa Indian School and played on the basketball team as well as sang in their Octette. She discusses growing up in the Taholah community and the challenges of procuring groceries and fresh water there, being isolated from some resources. Freda drove school buses from the 1940s to the early 1970s. Beatrice Black is also present for part of the interview.
Scope and Content Note:On side 1 of the tape, Freda describes her schooling, including Chemawa Indian School and the various jobs and activities students did there. She remembers her mother smoking fish, particularly dog salmon, and her brother Charlie hunting, including beaver meat. Freda spoke mainly English at home and at school, partially in response to bullying for her imperfect use of Quinault, and she discusses the language mostly dying with the older generations. Freda mentions fishing at her father’s and husband’s fishing grounds, and talks about navigating the tides and local coast guard to travel out of the Taholah area by wagon. Her mother’s extended family walked from the Hoh River to Taholah to stay with Freda’s family during the winters; Freda also recalls a train depot in Moclips where tourist trains came from Seattle carrying beachgoers. On side 2, Beatrice Black joins the interview. Freda and interviewer Winona Weber remember shared contacts within their community. Freda speaks about her father emigrating from Sweden and how she got into school bus driving during WWII. Freda and Beatrice discuss grocery prices and availability during that period and making their own food. Freda describes water use strategies at her family’s home with no running water and the decreasing availability of the community’s shared spring. She discusses playing basketball and singing at Chemawa and being fed by local families when traveling, and the meals at Chemawa, including Sunday morning cornflakes.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
8/11
Celestine, Aurelia
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: NO
Release Form: NO
1979-1980
8/12
Cochran, Mary Ellen
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: NO
Release Form: NO
1980
8/13
Colfax, Lyda
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: NO
Release Form: NO
1980
8/14
Cook, Peggy
3 (+ Duplicates) tapes
Peggy Cook was raised by her grandmother, a French-Indian, and grandfather, a Norwegian logger. Her mother was a prostitute. Peggy's childhood in the depression era was unhappy. She worked at rafting for 2 1/2 years, from age 13. When she was 15 her grandmother died and Peggy moved to Port Townsend and worked picking brush for the floral trade. She was married at age 17 to a sailor her uncle brought home. They stayed together for 32 years although they didn't love each other. He became a gambler and "womanizer" and she became a lesbian at age 38. Her husband tried to break up her affair with the woman, sent her to State mental hospital for a week. After the affair ended, she had a drinking problem but stopped. She discusses her husband's death in 1973, her subsequent mental breakdown and drug dependency, which she broke during several months living in the woods. After her recovery she moved to Seattle, worked as a painter, bought a house, which she shares with another woman. She went to college and earned a sociology degree. She discusses her children and her publishing business, Wolfpack Associates.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
8/15
Cooper, Harriet
2 tapes
The interviewer is the granddaughter of the informant. Harriet Cooper was active in the Socialist Party in the teens and twenties. She and her husband moved to South Carolina in the 1920s (?) and she went to work in a textile mill. South Carolina was backward then compared to the Northwest. She was a square peg in a round hole. In 1923 they drove back from South Carolina to the Northwest in 28 days. Harriet Cooper discusses her childhood and how, even then, she rebelled against restrictions on women's behavior. She discusses race relations and unions, birth control, child-bearing, and women and the vote.
Interviewer: Cooper, Jo Lynne
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979
8/16
Covey, Margaret S.
8 tapes
Physical education teacher, mother of a person with Down’s Syndrome. Interviewed by Libby Lunstrum. Covey discusses her childhood family relationships in rural Washington, attending a one-room school house, being active in sports, traveling to Austria, raising two children -one with Down’s Syndrome, her husband’s alcohol problem and their divorce, working as physical education teacher and as an athletic director for the parks department, her involvement in Delta Kappa Gamma (which performs services to further higher education in Washington), teaching Sunday School, her best friend Helen, and continuing to care for her daughter.
Interviewer: Lunstrum, Libby
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
8/17
Cox, Anna Frye
2 tapes
Anna was born 3/22/05 and raised in the University District of Seattle. Her father owned Frye Fuel Company. Her mother was a midwife. Her grandmother, Mildred Bailey, ran a farm in Fall City. They were the second white people in the area. Anna spent 2 weeks on the farm every summer picking fruit. Her mother picked hops. Anna met her husband Earl Cox at a ballroom on First and Pike. He was a longshoreman and winch driver. After marriage she worked at Boeing from 1922-23, sewing canvas on wing spans. They lived in San Francisco during WWII, then returned to Portland. Her husband wouldn't let her work after their first child was born and though she wanted to work she kept house until her husband's stroke in 1955. After she became a nursing home cook she studied dietetics. Since her husband's death she has learned new skills and become self-confident. After her retirement she became involved in SPICE and the American Association of Retired Persons, of which she served as President and Secretary. Her daughter, Gertrude, is a nursing home dietician.
Interviewer: Corliss, Bonita
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
8/18
Crawford, Cheryl L,
6 tapes
Bookkeeper, mother of four. Interviewed by Randi Wallmichrath. Crawford discusses her childhood in Seattle (being a perfectionist, her parents' fighting), majoring in business at the UW, her friendship with her mother, marrying John Balmer, working as a reservation agent, accountant, and Avon saleswoman, raising four children, living in various places in Washington, John's alcoholism, teaching business in high schools, her social life centering around whatever high school John happened to be coaching at, helping John through graduate school, his confession of an affair and their "struggl[ing] to keep the family intact", her divorce and the personal growth it forced on her, moving to Seattle and working as a bookkeeper, earning her Master's degree in business, her close relationships with her children, and enjoying living alone.
Interviewer: Wallmichrath, Randi
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
8/19
Crawford, Ruth
7 tapes
Pentecostal missionary and evangelist. Interviewed by Laura Dressler. Crawford Discusses her Swedish roots, her childhood family relationships, her father’s church work, employment and hard financial times in the 1920’s and The Depression, going to college to become a minister, meeting her husband who is also a minister, the growth of Seattle, her husband’s death, being a missionary to Latin America, Europe, and Africa, illnesses, and traveling in Asia and Australia and meeting old missionary friends there.
Interviewer: Dressler, Laura
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
8/20
Cross, Virginia
3 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Adams, Shirley
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
9/1
Crowley, Ruth L.
3 (+ Duplicates) tapes
Ruth grew up in Pullman, Washington and attended college there. She met her husband there, married and quit school after her junior year, in 1923. They moved to Long Beach where he studied cranberry cultivation. She joined the Ladies Union Aid Society and was put to work keeping records for the organization, eventually becoming president. She also worked as a secretary for the cranberry experiment station and took care of a large garden and livestock. She spent most of her time at home and raised 8 children. She has been a member of AAUW. About the Ladies Union Aid Society in Long Beach, Washington. Also discusses her husband's work with cranberries.
Interviewer: Smith, Jill G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/2
Cugini, Norma Jean Denzer
2 tapes
Denzer was born in 1928 in Renton, Washington. She worked at Peoples' Bank for 9 years before being appointed president of Community Bank of Renton in 1976. Denzer volunteered for several arts organizations and was president of the Seattle Opera Guild; she also was involved with the League of Women Voters and Forest Ridge Academy. Norma Denzer talks about her life which includes family life, banking career, volunteer work. See Biographical information for more information.
Interviewer: Ehlers, Susan Lynn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
9/3
Culp, Dora M.
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Hayes, Linda
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
9/4
Dan, Bertha
1 tape
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
9/5
Dash, Elsie
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
9/6
Depenheuer, Elizabeth
1 tape
Elizabeth Depenheuer was born in Sholtz, Germany in 1906 and moved to Koln with her family when she was 10. She was raised by her sister and father. She apprenticed as a dressmaker and went to work in a garmet factory after the war. She met her husband Johnny in the factory. Elizabeth describes her problems in emigrating to the U.S., her first impressions of New York and Seattle, learning English, and their floathouse at Seabeck.
Interviewer: Albee, Bonnie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
N.D.
9/7
Doran, Hazel Helen Preston
4 tapes
Hazel Preston was born in Tacoma in 1895. Her mother's parents were Irish immigrants to Canada. Her father died when she was five and she was sent to the Visitation Convent in Tacoma for the next 10 years. Her mother worked as a cook in an Alaskan mining camp for 3 or 4 years. She spent summers on her uncle's farm in Skagit County. After graduation from the convent at age 17, she went to work for the telephone company in Seattle as an operator. She picketed during the 1917 strike. She moved to the University District with her mother. She met her husband Arthur in 1913, began to date him in 1920. After her husband retired she took odd jobs, such as caring for elderly people. Hazel discusses the snowstorm of 1916, her summer home on Vashon Island, Seattle in the 1950s, her four children and married life, and changes in the University District. Seattle resident discusses her work as a telephone operator during 1914-1918, her involvement in the 1917 Seattle strike, her reminiscences of World War I and voting.
Interviewer: Smith, Jill G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/8
Doster, Martha Charlotte
5 tapes
Milliner and seamstress. Interviewed by April Graff. Doster discusses how the church was important in her childhood and still is, growing up around Greenlake, school activities, millinery, sewing, living and working in Chicago, Ketchikan, Hawaii (where she met her husband), California, and Seattle, the family drug store, church functions, friendships, her husband and brother’s deaths, and aging.
Interviewer: Graff, April
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
9/9
Eastman, Minnie Laura
1 tape
Minnie Eastman is a Snoqualmie. Eastman discusses traditional work, including basketry and fishing, the use of roots and fish in the diet of Eastern Washington Indians, her family, including her grandmother and mother who were hereditary leaders of the Snoqualmie tribe, education and languages, her husbands, and caring for her children.
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
N.D.
9/10
Eby, Susan Jane
8 tapes
Single mother, breast cancer survivor. Interviewed by Reiko Ninomiya. Eby discusses her childhood relationships with family, her childhood love of art and music, dating and social and academic activities in high school, the difficulty of moving to New Jersey as a senior in high school, joining a sorority in college and her social life there, student teaching, living in NY and dating there, moving to Seattle with her fiancé, the births and babyhood of her two children, divorce, her relationships with her children, and her experiences with breast cancer: surgery, chemotherapy, and re-evaluating her life
Interviewer: Ninomiya, Reiko
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
9/11
Eriks, Elsa
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Maasberg, Naomi
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
9/12
Evans, Winifred
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Parsons, Betty
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1980
9/13
Fabbe, Elizabeth McConnell
4 tapes
Mrs. Fabbe was a restaurant manager. She later worked at Frederick and Nelson department store and as a buyer for the Seattle school district. She is the widow of Harry F. Fabbe, editor of "Svenska Posten."
Interviewer: Knox-Seith, Barbara
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
9/14
Faith, Hope
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Mason, Nicole
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
9/15
Fant, Karen M.
1 tape
The interview discusses Hazel Wolf and her conservation work by Susan Fant, who is a friend.
Interviewer: Starbuck, Susan
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
9/16
Fehrman, Pamela Anne
6 tapes
Landscape architect. Interviewed by Lynne Swackhammer. Fehrman discusses the lives of her parents and grandparents, her experiences in school and girl scouts, early religious education, family holiday and everyday traditions, “girl-training stuff—cooking, housekeeping, ironing handkerchiefs”, her parents’ relationship, her present view of religion, her discomfort with traditional gender roles, and her feelings about relationships and friendships.
Interviewer: Swackhammer, Lynne
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
9/17
Fisher, Eula P.
3 tapes
Mrs. Fisher recalls her mother's journey by covered wagon from Illinois to Dayton, Washington in 1885 and growing up in wheat country with her widowed mother. She recalls her schooling in a one room school house, chores on the farm, butchering, curing, canning, and other activities. She recalls her father who was a farm laborer and describes his work. She discusses family life, illnesses, her mother's child bearing. She discusses her work as a cook for the wheat harvest after leaving school. She describes the harvest and life in the cookhouse, ca. WWI on a Calgary farm. She recalls meeting her future husband, dances and socials. She describes in detail life on their Cashmere fruit ranch. During the depression they also worked at meat cutting. She discusses her family and her move to Western Washington.
Interviewer: Pelzel, Jane
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/18
Frank, Angeline Tobin
1 tape
Biographical Note: Angeline Frank was a Nisqually Native American who grew up in a mostly white community in Mud Bay. Her mother made and sold cedar root baskets, and her father was a half-white, half-Tulalip logger. She lived close to her maternal grandparents. Angeline stopped her education after sixth grade to take care of her elder sister’s children in Oakville. Angeline was married three times, and from her third marriage, she had her son Billy Frank Jr., who was a lauded environmental activist and advocate for Native American fishing rights. He organized the “fish-ins” of the 1960s and 1970s, civil disobedience protests to assert Native American fishing rights by the Treaty of Medicine Creek. These rights were successfully reaffirmed through the Boldt Decision in 1979. During the interview, Angeline and interviewer Winona Weber go through old photographs and name community and family members.
Scope and Content Note:On side 1 of the tape, Angeline describes her mother’s cedar root basketmaking practice, which she and her siblings did not inherit. She shares memories of her grandfather and step-grandmother, who lived across the creek from them in Mud Bay; her step-grandmother baked delicious frybread and wove artisan basket burden straps, and her grandfather befriended neighborhood children. Angeline discusses raising Indigenous babies and using a cradleboard, and recounts the death of her daughter Rosie. On both sides 1 and 2, there is a narrative surrounding photos shown between Angeline and the interviewer, Winona Weber, where they discuss shared family and community members. On side 2, Angeline states that she attended school locally, though her youngest brother Ed attended boarding school at Cushman Indian School. She recalls staying home after 6th grade to take care of her older sister Catherine’s children, and that she regrets her lack of higher education now. She talks about doing laundry by hand and the strict standards for chores in her home, including milking cows. She mentions the Puyallup/Nisqually language and its fading usage. At the end of the tape, there is some discussion of her husband’s fishing at Frank’s Landing and her family’s involvement with the fish-ins there, which were organized by her son Billy Frank Jr., a famous Native American environmental rights activist.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/19
Frank, Ella "Maggie" Johns
1 tape
Biographical Note: Ella was born in 1904 and spent her early childhood living on an island in the middle of the Humptulips River. Her mother clammed, fished, wove baskets, and cooked for the local Shaker Church. Ella also described her mother’s second husband, a white man who did not like her brother very much. After her mother’s death, Ella moved to Taholah to live with relatives. She briefly attended school there, where she was bullied, and she only completed six years of school. During the rest of the interview, Ella discussed putting her children through high school and daily life in her home.
Scope and Content Note:Tape 1, side 1 discusses life on the Humptulips River, clamming, fishing, basket making, childhood, interracial marriage, and the Shaker Church. Side 2 discusses basket making, clam digging, smoking fish, preserving clams, education, Chemawa Indian School, raffia, sweetgrass, the old train line, and the Columbus Day Storm of 1962.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/20
Fritzberg, Olga Elkins
3 tapes
Biographical Note: Olga Elkins Fritzberg was born on June 3, 1898 in Preston, Washington. Her father and uncle were Swedish immigrants who established Preston as a shingle mill and became prominent citizens in the town. In 1915, Olga attended Washington State College Preparatory School to finish her last year of high school. She taught 8th grade in Preston. Her wedding in 1920 was the biggest the town had seen. She moved to Seattle with her husband in 1930 and became a Works Progress Administration (WPA) sewing teacher at Ballard High School.
Scope and Content Note:Olga describes her family’s emigration from Sweden to Preston, Washington, and describes the founding of the town. She recalls memories from each holiday, and how they procured food and goods in the town. She describes a childhood of play. She remembers prohibition in Preston, and the differences between the residents of Upper and Lower Preston. Olga describes her home life and the influences of Swedish customs and language. Preston lacked a high school, and she describes going to school in Pullman and the formation of a sorority. Olga tutored the 8th grade class in Preston and passed her teaching certification to work as a teacher. The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 had deadly impacts on her school. Olga moved to Seattle with her family during the Great Depression and became a Works Progress Administration (WPA) sewing teacher at Ballard High School. She also attended the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle as a child. She describes the negative effects of the Great Depression on her husband’s work and her community. She talks about her husband and their large wedding. Olga describes her parents’ community work, including her father’s involvement in labor movements her mother’s leadership in church activities. Olga shares her feelings about the changing role of women and describes raising her children. She shares about her life and activities in North Bend, including her involvement in social and political communities. She discusses adjusting to new technology such as cars, telephones, and radio. She recalls travel in the 1920s, visiting national parks, befriending a local Indigenous family in Preston, and her musicianship.
Interviewer: Berk, Barbara Jane
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979
9/21
Garcia, Adeline Hannah Skultka
5 tapes
Indian, Haida elder, financial aid officer. Interviewed by Janet L. Peele. Garcia discusses her childhood illnesses, strict structure and gender segregation and at Catholic school in Canada, meeting her husband Jerry, founding the Tlingit and Haida Central Council, working with the American Indian Women’s Service League and the Seattle Indian Center, researching and publishing a financial aid guide for Native American students, living in Seattle during WWII, organizing the National Indian Urban Council Convention, being a financial aid officer, and being socially active in her community now that she’s retired.
Interviewer: Peele, Janet L.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
9/22
Geer, Mary Wells
4 tapes
Mrs. Geer was a high school French teacher. She collected dolls and did freelance writing as hobby interests. She is a twin and discusses twins in the interview.
Interviewer: Thompson, Doriann
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1988
9/23
George, Louisa
2 tapes
Born 1894, she is a Nooksack. She attended school for only two years and first leaned English there. Her father died when she was young. After her mother died, her family married her to her mother's second husband's brother. She was age 14. Her husband died 21 or 22 years before these interviews. He wasn't able to earn enough money to feel the family so Louisa worked picking berries, hops and grapes. She tooks her children with her and one daughter died of tuberculosis. She continued to work in the fields, the cannery, and knitting socks after her husband died. George discusses work in the fields picking berries, hops and grapes and work in the cannery. She also discusses knitting socks, social activities, Pow Wows, her conversion to Christianity and its influence on her family. She sings a hymn in [language unknown] and mentions her husband as an Indian dancer who had supernatural powers. The summary of the interview with both George and Paul concerns music.
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
9/24
Giddens, Zilpha Keys
5 tapes
Zilpha Giddens (née Keys) was born in Payette, Idaho and travelled by covered wagon with her parents to North Bend, Oregon. She grew up mostly in South Bend, Washington. She married twice and worked for twenty years for Wigwam Stores in advertising. After retiring, she and her husband travelled to the South Pacific. She has written a book about her experiences.
Interviewer: Ray, Eleanor
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
9/25
Golay, Jane White
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Currier, Julie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
9/26
Gould, Ethel Evelyn Beieler
4 tapes
Volunteer with Hmong refugees, teacher. Interviewed by Jan Henry. Gould discusses growing up on a wheat farm in Davenport, WA (family and church traditions holidays, sewing, traveling around WA, and her parents’ careers and relationship), her home economics teaching career, marriage, raising her daughters and teaching them “what the schools did not”, being a campfire and 4-H leader, writing her family genealogy, traveling to Boston, founding a community senior center and a women’s club, working with Hmong refugees, being honored by Ladies’ Home Journal and President Reagan’s Volunteer Action Award, arts and crafts, and her children and their marriages and children.
Interviewer: Henry, Jan
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
9/27
Graves, Deanne Marie Hofseth
1 tape
Deanne Marie Hofseth Graves was born in 1941 in Anchorage, Alaska. She is an Athabaskan-Teneh Indian.
Interviewer: Rosebrook, Jacque
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
9/28
Griffin, Lillian Fernandez
4 tapes
Mrs. Griffen was a hospital worker in Louisana and a rivet bucker at Boeing in Seattle. The daughter of a Black mother and a Caucasian father, she was abused throughout her childhood by her mother who was ashamed of her.
Interviewer: Koplan, Ruth
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1988
9/29
Haas, Jessie Nores
0 tapes
Actor, director, and author Jessie Nores Haas was born in 1887 in Missouri. Haas's theater career began in 1910 in Los Angeles, where she went to work for the Ferris Hartman Opera Company. Over the next nine years, she traveled up and down the West Coast, performing in vaudeville shows. In 1919, she moved from Portland to Seattle with her husband, Saul Haas, whom she had married earlier that year. He worked as a reporter for The Union Record Chronicle. Later, he was director of customs for two terms under President Franklin Roosevelt. He started KIRO radio and KIRO television. The couple were divorced during World War II. After marriage and moving to Seattle, Jessie Haas became active in Seattle's theater community. Over the next half-century, she acted with many of the city's theater companies, including A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and the Cirque Dinner Theatre, where she played for 26 years in 36 productions. She performed on stage until she was 89, and continued to attend performances and support theaters well after her 100th birthday. For a time in the 1940s, she was also a columnist for The Capitol Hill Times. Haas was known for her idealism, energy, and zest for life. Her last project was regularly writing world leaders, encouraging them to declare one hour of peace worldwide and dedicate it to all the planet's 10-year-old children. She said: "Poor little Earth planet. I've just got to fix it so that we have peace on Earth." Jessie Nore Haas lived alone in her Capitol Hill home for decades. She died in 1991 at the age of 103.
Interviewer: Drake, Laura
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
9/30
Hall, Doris Lee
6 tapes
Nurse, missionary in the Philippines, bible translator. Interviewed by Dana Anne Fehrenbacher. Hall discusses her childhood love of music, performing in many musical groups, studying nursing at Indiana University, becoming a Christian and deciding to be a missionary for Wycliffe (a bible translating organization) which sent her to jungle camp in Mexico where she met her husband Bill, going to work with the Subanon tribe in the Philippines, raising and homeschooling four children and their attending college in the USA, taking furloughs back to the USA, translating the entire New Testament into Subanon, and teaching literacy in Australia.
Interviewer: Fehrenbacher, Dana Anne
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
10/1
Hallock, Barbara
3 tapes
Public health nurse, massage therapist. Interviewed by Beverly Baker. Hallock discusses her childhood in Kent, WA, being active in performing arts in high school, attending the UW School of Nursing, serving as an army nurse both stateside and in the Pacific during WWII, caring for her parents, poultry farming, helping establish the hospice movement in Seattle, being active in the Nurses Association and working at the old Renton Hospital, becoming a massage therapist, and traveling in Asia.
Interviewer: Baker, Beverly
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
10/2
Harris, Susan Dee
6 tapes
Artist: intaglio printmaker. Interviewed by Bryley J. Hull. Harris discusses her childhood in Arizona, working at Yellowstone during her high school summers, getting her BS in architecture, volunteering with unwed mothers, political activities in Berkeley in the 1960’s, relationship with her then-husband Steven, living in San Francisco, traveling in Europe and being ill there, teaching drafting at SPU, NSCC, and the UW Extension, working for the Indian Health Services in Alaska and teaching art to Alaskan children, working on her art at SPU, her involvement with Metro Arts Council, the Seattle Arts Community, and her and others’ artwork: aesthetics, media, and architectural elements.
Interviewer: Hull, Bryley J.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
10/3
Haskins, Delia and Senior, Rose
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
10/4
Heck, Edith
1 tape
Edith Heck is an Upper Chehalis. Her grandparents lived near the Klickitat River. Edith discusses her education at an Oakville boarding school and at Chemawa. She also discusses language, basketry, chores and her mother who worked for white people as a housekeeper. She recalls an incident in the hop fields and an Indian story about a dog and a bear. Informant's voice is faint.
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
N.D.
10/5
Henrick, Angela Torres
5 tapes
Latina radio producer and court interpreter. Interviewed by Daphne Renee Lewis. Henrick discusses growing up in Lima, Peru, her mother, being adopted, the lives of her mother’s maids, moving to the US at age 26, attending the University of Washington, working at Safeco and being homesick, deciding to stay in the United States permanently, meeting her husband John, pregnancy, doing radio shows for KUOW, her feelings about the “English only” movement in America and the nationwide cuts in Spanish radio programs, the difficulty of working as an interpreter for the courts, John’s mother moving in with them and her death five years later, Peruvian funeral traditions, raising her daughter Karla to be bilingual, her relationship with John, and her inclusion in the educational card set “Women in Washington”.
Interviewer: Lewis, Daphne Renee
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
10/6
Heywood, Eunice Isabel
5 tapes
She discusses her early life, including her parent's homestead near Quincy, Wa. and her carrer as an adult education teacher and a home demonstration agent. She became Director of the U.S. Federal Extension Service. She moved to Seattle when she retired.
Interviewer: Laprade, May Lou
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
10/7
Hilbert, Vi Taqʷšəblu
2 tapes
Biographical Note: Vi Hilbert (1918-2008) was born in Skagit County, Washington, the only surviving child of Charlie and Louise Anderson. Her mother sold wool socks and both parents were mostly illiterate. Vi loved school as a child and attended Chemawa Indian School. Vi’s parents were part of the Indian Shaker Church. Her parents spoke both English and Lushootseed at home; Vi later learned to read and write Lushootseed during her work with linguist Thomas Hess and she became a highly impactful Lushootseed conservationist and storyteller. Vi taught Lushootseed from 1971-1988 at the University of Washington, where she also transcribed and translated Leon Metcalf’s 1950s Lushootseed recordings. She co-authored Lushootseed grammars and dictionaries and published books of stories, teachings, and place names of her native region. She was the last fully fluent heritage speaker of Lushootseed, and her linguistic and cultural achievements are recognized by statewide and national awards.
Scope and Content Note:Tape 1 and tape 2 cover separate interviews in different settings. In tape 1, side 1, Vi Hilbert is interviewed by Jill G. Smith and another individual, who begin by asking her to take part in the Washington Women’s Heritage Project. They then discuss Vi’s recent research and storytelling, noting Vi’s work transcribing and translating the stories of her Aunt Susie Sampson Peter for her Haboo book. They discuss memorizing oral history and Native Americans being “hungry” for their Indigenous language, and Vi explains her being charge of stewarding the language as a tribal elder. They touch on Vi teaching Lushootseed at the University of Washington and the politics of her imminently losing her position. Tape 1, side 2 continues with this topic, and then goes over themes in Vi’s stories, the art of passing down tribal storytelling, and Vi’s research process and interacting with students. Tape 2 covers Vi’s upbringing and schooling in her own words. On side 1, she recounts being an only child and having her parents’ full attention. She details her schooling, including at Chemawa Indian School, where she was disappointed with the lack of academic rigor and thus transferred to high school in Portland, Oregon. She then moved to Taholah and married her first husband, and she recognized how important her language and tribal customs were once she lived apart from them. She recounts renaming herself as an adult to taqʷšəblu. Vi’s parents were Shakers and she attended shakes growing up. On both sides 1 and 2, she discusses her father receiving his Skalalitude (spirit power, Tamanawas) and the friction between the Shaker religion and traditional Native American beliefs and practices. In tape 2, side 2, Vi discusses public speaking expectations as a tribal elder, dating across families or classes within the tribe, and her enjoying meeting Native Americans from different backgrounds. Vi recalls working at the hospital at Chemawa, and she briefly mentions infant head flattening in her tribe.
Interviewer: Smith, Jill G.; Interviewer 2. Weber, Winona; Interviewer 1
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
Tape 1 and tape 2 are separate oral history interviews.
1981
10/8
Hopp, Cora B. McIntosh
2 tapes
In 1888 Cora Whiteman was born in a log cabin on a farm on Camus Creek in Umatilla County, Oregon. She attended a two-room school in Helix, Oregon, and high school in Olympia. In 1911 she went to work in the Secretary of State's Office, issuing automobile licenses, and shortly thereafter worked in the Treasurer's Office. In 1916 she was appointed Deputy Treasurer and served in that position until 1917 when she quit to start a family. In 1921 Cora and her husband Lawrence McIntosh moved to Port Angeles. In 1931 Lawrence died. Cora then ran the family's grocery business with the aid of her 13 year old son. In 1941 the store expanded and Cora ran it by herself until her retirement in 1953. In 1959 she married Blaine Hopp.
Interviewer: Sammons, Valerie
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979
Box
24
Hopp, Cora B. McIntosh
1 Reel to Reel tape tapes
In 1888 Cora Whiteman was born in a log cabin on a farm on Camus Creek in Umatilla County, Oregon. She attended a two-room school in Helix, Oregon, and high school in Olympia. In 1911 she went to work in the Secretary of State's Office, issuing automobile licenses, and shortly thereafter worked in the Treasurer's Office. In 1916 she was appointed Deputy Treasurer and served in that position until 1917 when she quit to start a family. In 1921 Cora and her husband Lawrence McIntosh moved to Port Angeles. In 1931 Lawrence died. Cora then ran the family's grocery business with the aid of her 13 year old son. In 1941 the store expanded and Cora ran it by herself until her retirement in 1953. In 1959 she married Blaine Hopp.
Interviewer: Sammons, Valerie
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979
Box/Folder
10/9
House, Frances M.
3 tapes
Shirt press operator, nurse's aid, and hotel and motel maid.
Interviewer: Bolima, Donna
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
10/10
Hraska, Mary
MISSING tapes
Mary Hraska discusses her life in Austria, coming to the U.S. in 1912, and her life in the U.S. This is a copy of in interview conducted by Washington Women's Heritage Project.
Interviewer: Semar, Claudia
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
10/11
Hyland, Holmes
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Parsons, Betty
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
10/12
Jackson, Elizabeth S.
4 tapes
Elizabeth Jackson was born in Portland in 1911 and attended the University of Oregon. She was a leader in the YWCA at both the local and national level. She was active in a number of social causes such as race relations and freedom of speech. In 1962, as Executive Director of the UW YWCA, she provided a forum for Gus Hall, the head of the American Communist Party, when he was denied an appearance at the University. She died in 1989.
Interviewer: Theisen, Inge
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
10/13
Jackson, Sara O.
3 (+ Duplicates) tapes
Sara Jackson was born in Seattle in 1915. Hers was the only black family in a neighborhood of immigrants. Her mother worked cleaning houses to support the family after the father died. Her maternal grandfather came to this area from Tennessee in the late 1890s as a strike breaker. Her family lived in the Rainier Valley, among Italian truck farmers when they first settled in Seattle. Her Uncle John knew Warren G. Magnuson at the University and became the first black judge in Seattle. Her grandmother worked in a laundry operated by the Church of God in Christ and was a midwife and herbalist. Sara began working cleaning houses when she was 12. She graduated from Queen Anne High School. She acted with the WPA Black Theater group from 1935 or 36 until 1939 when it closed. After that she did one play for Mrs. James and later worked in the Black Arts Theater and Black Arts West. She held various jobs during WWII. She worked for Seattle Family Counseling Service and Visiting Nurses Service from 1967-79, helping troubled families. Jackson recalls the Queen Anne hill neighborhood in her childhood and how the neighbors were an extended family. She discusses her family and ancestors. She recalls racial prejudice in Seattle when she was young. She also describes the beginnings of the WPA Black Theater group (begun by Florence James [?]). She discusses her marriage and 3 children.
Interviewer: Pollack, Leona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
10/14
Jacobs, Elizabeth Derr
2 tapes
Jacobs discusses her life, including her experiences as a folklorist, doing fieldwork with her husband.
Interviewer: Valenzuela, Karen
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1979
10/15
Jones, Mavis Lee
5 tapes
Born in 1933. Tiny Jones discusses her early life, service in the Navy, gay life in Seattle, raising cattle in Denmark, membership in the MCC Church, and alcoholism.
Interviewer: Pearsall, Carol
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
10/16
Josenhaus, Sarah Charlotte
3 (+ Duplicates) tapes
Sarah "Sally" Josenhaus was born in Seattle in 1890. He mother, Emma Parsons, was born in Turkey, educated at Hingham Women's College, N.Y., and was a musician, teacher, and writer. Her father, Anton Josenhaus, was born in Germany, educated at University of Michigan and worked as an architect in private business as an engineer for the city of Seattle. Sally attended the UW and worked as a teacher, teaching various high school subjects. She never married. Her family was actively involved in arts and politics in Seattle. Anna Louise Strong and her family lived with Sally's family for about one year in 1908. Sally shared a room with Anna Louise. The Josenhaus' were members of Sydney Strong's congregation. Josenhaus discusses her life from 1890-1979, including family relationships, family history, early years in Seattle, her school days, politics, hobbies, her views on marriage and her teaching career.
Interviewer: Tonder, Karen
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979
10/17
Jull, Mary Lou
3 tapes
Indian, Umatilla artist. Interviewed by Sally Christine Peterson. Jull discusses her childhood living on the Umatilla Reservation near Pendleton, Oregon, Catholic boarding school, her father and 3 brothers, singing in the choir in public high school, her good relationship with her Aunt, meeting her husband Louie at the “Round-Up” (carnival), her three daughters, and working with her husband on their beadwork art.
Interviewer: Peterson, Sally
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
10/18
Justice, Mauris Hanla
3 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Mason, Nicole
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
10/19
Keller, Lynne
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Mason, Nicole
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
10/20
Kelley, Evelyn Holdridge
5 tapes
Farm daughter, quilter, fur trapper. Interviewed by A. Jill Christenson-Loll. Kelley discusses growing up as a member of a big family in the Catskills in NY, then coming West with her immediate family for the Alaska gold rush. Her mother died soon after, and she and her brothers lived with their father near Bremerton in a farmhouse with no electricity or running water. She tells of constantly doing both house- and farmwork, boating up the river to sell their farm produce, disliking school, her brothers serving in WWI and the hardship on the family, eloping with her husband George, marriage, trapping game, quilting, dollmaking, taxidermy, raising children, and living at the Foss Home in Seattle.
Interviewer: Christenson-Loll, A. Jill
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
10/21
King, Dorothy Hill
6 tapes
Teacher, civil rights activist. Interviewed by Amanda Sawicki. King discusses her childhood in Seattle, raising animals in their backyard, the Great Depression, sexism and activities in school, her mother’s death and father’s strokes, relationship with her younger brother, enjoying books, college, getting married and moving to Detroit, getting married again and teaching school in Edmonds, WA and the politics in the school system, her second divorce, involvement in the women’s movement, Christian Science and choosing not to join that church, raising foster children, working for the democratic party, quilting, volunteering for the Chicken Soup Brigade, and Washington sex legislation.
Interviewer: Sawicki, Amanda
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
11/1
Kingsbury, Marcelle Dunning
6 tapes
Doctor, TB survivor. Interviewed by Bethany Crouse. Kingsbury discusses her friendships and activities in the convent school in California, deciding to become a doctor, fencing at Hunter College, NYU Medical School, living in a Tuberculosis sanatorium, moving to Seattle and working at Firlands TB sanatorium, teaching medicine, opening a private practice in respiratory disease and family medicine, working to legalize abortion in Washington, volunteering on the board of the Church for Homeless Women, and meeting and marrying her husband Chester.
Interviewer: Crouse, Bethany
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
11/2
Knemeyer, Dee
8 tapes
Dee Knemeyer is the mother of a son, Bill, who experienced kidney failure. The interview discusses the progress of Bill's disease, his life on a kidney machine, and his kidney transplants. She also discusses how this illness affected her family life and how she held the family together throughout.
Interviewer: Clatterbaugh, Kenneth C.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
11/3
Koski, Claudette
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Parsons, Betty
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1980
11/4
Landry, Myrtle Charley
2 tapes
Biographical Note: Myrtle was born in Puyallup and grew up around Bay Center. Her family moved around a lot, including to the Shoalwater Reservation during the Great Depression. She attended school through the ninth grade and spent a short amount of time at Chemawa Indian School. She ran away and got married at the age of sixteen, and they eventually moved to Tacoma during World War II, where her husband worked on airplanes and she worked at the Cushman Indian Hospital. Myrtle spent a significant portion of her life caring for and advocating for her son, notable painter Eugene Landry, who suffered complications from tubercular meningitis and eventually became paralyzed. She describes the racism and mistreatment they endured. They also discuss the development of Myrtle’s racial awareness in their conversations.
Scope and Content Note:The first side of tape 1 discusses Myrtle's childhood, including where and when her siblings were born. Side 2 of tape 1 discussed Myrtle's experience supporting her son, Eugene Landry (who became a famous painter), through a series of medical traumas after recovering from tubercular meningitis, including mistreatment that resulted in his paralysis. They also discussed clam digging, crabbing, duck hunting, snipe hunting, seal hunting, butchering, berry picking, the Great Depression, and World War II. The first side of tape 2 was extremely short, but it included discussion of her grandfather, a Chinook chief named George “Lighthouse” Charley, and grandmother. On the second side of the first tape, they discuss family, education, her time at the Chemawa Indian School, prejudice, racism, unemployment, reservation life, tribal leadership, alcoholism, and drug addiction. On the second side of the second tape, they discuss the Shaker Church, tamanawis (also spelled tamanawus and tamanawas in different sources), Indigenous medicine, family planning, birth control, culture change, makeup, rites of passage, and her racial identity.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
11/5
Legget, Deanna
2 tapes
Indian (Chemainus Bay) UW janitor, mother. Interviewed by Pamela Creasy. Leggett discusses life on the reservation and fishing and gathering food there, attending boarding school, her uncle and brother’s suicides, following the crops with her mother as a migrant worker, living in foster care, prejudice against Indians, meeting and marrying Gilbert and raising five children, living in Idaho with Gilbert’s parents, being reunited with her family, her best friend Lorie and her death, divorcing Gilbert, working as a janitor at the UW for 19 years and retiring due to congestive heart failure, her children’s lives, and her common-law marriage to Don and his death.
Interviewer: Creasy, Pamela
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
11/6
Leipzig, Marwayne
4 tapes
Marwayne Leipzig was born in 1918. She is an astrologer.
Interviewer: Christensen, Melinda
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
11/7
Lueders, Margaret Louise
4 tapes
Margaret Louise Lueders, secretary, commercial artist, newsletter editor, activist on behalf of the elderly and of single persons. Founder of Solo Center, a support group for single adults.
Interviewer: Moulton, Shannon
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
11/8
Lundberg, Elsie E.
3 tapes
Bookkeeper and stenographer. Interviewed by Shannon Moulton. Carlson discusses her parents’ emigration from Sweden to Seattle, growing up near Eatonville, WA and her family relationships, playing with her siblings, childhood chores, the Baptist church and its early influence on her, moving to Seattle after high school, finding a job during the Depression, getting married, having children and being a working mother, her mother moving in with her after her father’s death, enjoying her work, her religious faith, her husband Clarence’s death, traveling, and being a retired single woman.
Interviewer: Moulton, Shannon
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
11/9
Lyons, Eleanor Julia
3 tapes
Mrs. Lyons describes her childhood during the Depression and her adult years in Seattle. She was a beautician.
Interviewer: Toda, Noriko
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
11/10
Lyons, Eleanor Julia
3 tapes
Mrs. Lyons describes her childhood during the Depression and her adult years in Seattle. She was a beautician.
Interviewer: Carlson, Karan J.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
11/11
Mabbot, Mary Jane Pease
3 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Kanner, Kathy
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
11/12
Magonegil-Wontoch, Robin
5 tapes
Robin, born Robin Miller in 1963 in New Mexico, grew up in Jerome, Idaho, attended two Bible colleges, and after her diagnosis of cancer has worked in Seattle at Hands Off Washington, a civil rights organization for sexual minorities. She changed her name to her mother's and grandmother's maiden surnames. Lesbian, person with cancer. Interviewed by Libby Lunstrum. Magonegil-Wontoch discusses her and her sisters’ childhood abuse by their parents, her close relationship with her sisters, playing football and enjoying “traditionally unfeminine” activities as a child, discovering her attraction to women, joining the fundamentalist Baptist church, attending Bible colleges, turning away from organized religion but remaining a spiritual person, falling in love and living with her friend Kathy, coming out, living with cervical and lymphatic cancer and her treatment, and working full time at Hands-Off Washington.
Interviewer: Lunstrom, Libby
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
11/13
Mangan, Katherine
2 tapes
Irish domestic worker, mother. Interviewed by Heidi McKenzie. Mangan discusses her grandparents’ and parents’ lives in Ireland, her childhood in Ireland including life and work on her farm without electricity or running water, the weather, school, crafts, and relationships with her large family, and the Catholic Church, coming by boat to New York City and finding work as a domestic servant during the Great Depression, courtship and marriage, raising children and their scholarship, being a working mother, rationing and dances in WWII, moving to Washington DC and Seattle, her daughter and husband’s deaths, grandchildren, and traveling to Ireland throughout her life.
Interviewer: McKenzie, Heidi
Consent Form: No
Release Form: Yes
1993
11/14
Marshall, Nell Timmie Timonen
5 tapes
Timmie was born in Aberdeen, WA in 1913 of Finnish parents. She tells of her childhood as an only child, and discusses school, sports, nurses training and her work as a nurse and later a stewardess (pre-WWII). She further talks about her marriage, two sons and spending much time and energy entertaining the clients of her husbands business. Timmie also discusses family relationships, her medical problems and her interests in sports and metaphysics. She tells how she helped start adult education in the Bellevue School district.
Interviewer: Ehlers, Susan Lynn
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
11/15
Masakella, Aisha
5 tapes
African-American lesbian, mother. Interviewed by Chris Kuhel. Masakella discusses growing up in Pennsylvania and racism in Catholic school there, moving to New York and working as a prostitute, Living with her aunt in Philadelphia, working as a maid, her five-year marriage, her daughter Rhakisha’s health problems and death, attending Malcolm X College, questioning her sexuality, her relationship with her mother, moving to Seattle, depression, working with social services helping Southeast Asian refugees, attending Griffin Business College, getting a job as a bouncer and becoming involved in Seattle’s gay community, “Chooses to be in fringe of S&M community”, her abusive relationship with her girlfriend Laura, her daughter Rashida’s running away, and working at the center for battered women in Everett.
Interviewer: Kuhel, Chris
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
11/16
Mason, Joan Lee Grant
2 tapes
Mrs. Mason, a homemaker with four surviving children, worked for a time as a sales clerk at the Pike Place Market. Although she has multiple sclerosis, she is an extremely active volunteer in civic and environmental groups.
Interviewer: Wilson, Aline
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1988
11/17
Mason, Lucile
MISSING tapes
This is a copy of an interview conducted by Western Washington University Heritage Project with Lucile Mason who was born in Palo Alto, but who spent her childhood in the Skagit Valley. She taught at Wellsley, University of California at San Francisco, and Mills College.
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979
11/18
McAteer, Irene
4 tapes
Catholic seamstress, stroke survivor. Interviewed by Joan Haugen. McAteer discusses her genealogy, leaving school at age twelve (her father died) playing in the family band and singing in the church choir, dances, marrying her husband George, having two children, living all over the US, working for the State of Washington Dept. of Insurance after George’s death in 1957, bowling, her children’s lives and how proud she is of their education and accomplishments, her two strokes and how limited mobility limits her life, her friends’ deaths, and aging.
Interviewer: Haugen, Joan
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
11/19
McKaen, Maureen and McMacken, Sarah
3 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Stanyar, Marie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979-1982
11/20
McKay, Linnette Sheldon
1 tape
Linnette McKay is a Tulalip. Linnette McKay discusses life on a farm where her mother kept chickens and sheep. She discusses sheep shearing, wool washing, spinning and knitting. She thought of her mother as provider. Her mother also cooked for her father's logging crew. Linnette discusses her education and her work as a Community Health Representative.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
11/21
McKenney, Hazel Charley
1 tape
McKenney recalls living on the ocean while growing up, with clamming at Moclips and trolling with her father. Her grandmother tried to sell her mother to a rich man. She also discusses her father's drinking, her year spent at Children's Orthopedic Hospital, school, a flu epidemic, cranberry picking, and the clothing she wore as a girl. She discusses her mother, who was the disciplinarian.
Interviewer: Unknown
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
11/22
McMurtrey, Margaret Louise Jones
2 tapes
Margaret was born in 1915 in Ketchikan, Alaska. Her father was a forester and a graduate of the UW. The family moved from Seattle to Ketchikan to build fish traps. The family returned to Seattle briefly, but soon moved to California, then Arizona where her father worked as a teacher. The family next moved to Roslyn, then Moscow, Idaho where Margaret attended college and graduated in 1935 with a degree in dietetics. She interned in Philadelphia, worked as an assistant dietician in a mental hospital in Towson, Maryland and as a dietician in an Oklahoma hospital. She spend a year at the Quakers' Pendle Hill, Pennsylvania Institute for advanced study. She then moved to Moscow to stay with her father after which her sister commited suicide. Margaret moved to Coeur d'Alene where she shared a houseboat with a friend. She fell in love with a soldier and after he was shipped overseas she had his child. She moved to Berkeley, California with her daughter and for the next five years lived with a friend named Mary who also had an illegitimate child. McMurtrey recalls her memories of life in Ketchikan, Alaska and Roslyn, Arizona. She describes her moves to Idaho, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Oklahoma, and California. She talks of the large numbers of women who bore illegitimate children during World War II.
Interviewer: Walton, Elizabeth
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
11/23
Meskimen, Frances Matthews
5 tapes
Frances Maskimen was the first lady boilermaker in the state, possibly in the world. She was born 1899 near Eldorado Springs, Missouri. Her father was alternately a miner and farmer. The Marsha Lash interview with Frances Meskimen dicusses her book "Story of My Life," her early family life on a farm, her early work experiences, meeting and marrying her husband, a welder, and working as a boilermaker. In the Pollack interview Frances discusses her family, her childhood, and how at age 10 she assumed most of the homemaking chores. Her formal schooling was only until the eight grade, but she continued to educate herself. The family moved to Eldorado, Kansas where she met her husband. Frances learned how to do boilermaking from her husband. Prior to WWII she and her husband came to Washington. During the war, she worked in shipyards.
Interviewer: Lash, Marsha
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1981
12/1
Miesse, Helen Margaret
4 tapes
Mrs. Miesse was a bookkeeper and clerical worker at UWCA in Spokane, then a personal counselor and supervisor of telephone operators at Seattle YWCA from 1936 to 1946. She later worked for a doctor in Olympia, where she now lives.
Interviewer: Roechs, Heidi Marie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
12/2
Miller, Doris Adams
1 tape
Biographical Note: Doris grew up on the Skokomish reservation, and her grandmother was her primary caregiver. She described a childhood spent outside, picking berries and digging for butter clams. She attended Lower Skokomish School, then spent a year at Shelton High School before transferring to Chemawa, eventually dropping out after tenth grade to take care of her aging grandmother. She spent much of her free time playing baseball.
Scope and Content Note:On side 1, Doris describes growing up in Skokomish, where her grandmother, a prominent Shaker who often travelled around the state, raised her and her brother. They went huckleberry picking in Mount Rainier, clam digging and preservation, and her education at Shelton and Chemawa Indian School. On side 2, they discuss head flattening, her grandmother’s employment, not learning her language, attending Lower Skokomish School with both white and Indigenous children, and picking all sorts of berries and making jams and jellies. She describes the Old Indian Henry Trail they used to hike and camp on while picking berries at Mount Rainier, as well as the plane crash that temporarily closed it. Doris also went into more detail about her time at Chemawa. She spent much of her free time playing baseball.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
12/3
Molner, Denise
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Chamberlain, Paddy
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
12/4
Moore, Susan Cain
1 tape
Susan Moore's mother was an Indian but her father was not. She was born in Poplar, Montana but lived much of her childhood with an aunt in Seattle. She discusses Chemawa, family life, and events from her childhood.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
12/5
Nelson, May Komedal
3 tapes
Mrs. Nelson, long-time resident of Bainbridge Island, was manager of the Seabold Store on the Island.
Interviewer: Diehl, Annette
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
12/6
Newell, Margaret Eihusen
1 tape
Interviewer is Margaret Newell's daughter. Margaret's maternal grandparents came from Germany to Illinois in the 1860s and farmed. Her paternal grandparents were German immigrants also. Her parents met and became engaged by mail. They both came from farming families and lived on a Nebraska farm after their marriage in 1913. In 1926 the family moved to the grandparent's farm in Illinois. The grandparents spoke German. Ms. Newell discusses her parents and their marriage, her childhood, schooling, and ambitions. She also recalls the Great Depression during which time she attended beauty college.
Interviewer: Mackey, Diane
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979
12/7
Newton, Alice Shale
1 tape
Biographical Note: Alice Newton, Quinault, was born in Taholah and was raised by her father and grandmother. Upon their deaths, she moved to Seattle with her mother and got into trouble as a youth; she was sent to juvenile institutions, including the Martha Washington School for Girls. As an adult, she and her husband struggled to work the fishing and timber industries (impacted by the Indian Reorganization Act) and participated in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Rayonier. Alice struggled with alcoholism and addiction throughout her life but at the time of interviewing was recently sober. An unnamed friend also joins Alice in the interview.
Scope and Content Note:In tape 1, side 1, Alice and an unnamed friend reminisce about their childhood in Taholah and discuss Alice's grandmother, a community leader and basket maker. Alice recalls the downturn of her life when she moved to Seattle and her time in juvenile institutions, as well as financial and legal struggles working in the fishing and timber industries and battling the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Rayonier in a lawsuit alongside her husband. Alice comments on Native American culture of generosity. She discusses her prolonged substance abuse problems and the positive impact her mother in law and Christian faith had on these issues. In tape 1, side 2, Alice and her friend continue discussing childhood and list their friends and family in Taholah. Alice discusses spending time with her grandfather in Queets, picking berries and canning fruit, smoking and drying fish, and swimming in local waters. She reflects on the Taholah community helping each other and opening their homes to each other, as well as her relationship with her parents and her mother’s discipline. She briefly touches on her experience at school and summarizes her feelings moving in and out of Taholah, Moclips, and Seattle. There is an unclear narrative about receiving help and protection from her aunt(s) as a teen.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
12/8
Oliver, Josephine
1 tape
Josephine Oliver is part Lummi and part Duwamish. Her interview discusses education, racial discrimination, fishing, and funeral customs.
Interviewer: Unknown
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
N.D.
12/9
Olson, Gladys
MISSING tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Unkonwn
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1981
12/10
Paden, Kathryn Stover
2 tapes
Born 1914, Kathryn Stover was a teacher and during the summers of 1943-1945 worked at the Seattle Boeing defense plant as an inspector. Tape 1, side 1, discusses her work at Boeing and World War II in general. The rest of the interview is stories involving her mother, father, friends, early childhood to adult life. Topics covered are the Seattle fire, father's driving team, household help, education, Fred Hutchinson birthday party, sorority, chemistry classes at the UW, unwed mothers, abortion, voting, Indians and mother's first exposure to, marriage vs. career, courtship, sister, friends, dependent relationships in marriage, favorite dress, animals, husband's like of hunting. Tape 1, side 1 is transcribed.
Interviewer: Lore Mayo, Barabara A
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
12/11
Palmer, Elizabeth Chenowith
5 tapes
Artist, jeweler. Interviewed by Gina D. Pankowski. Palmer discusses loving the part of her childhood she spent in Mexico, moving to Texas and liking it less, ballet, meeting and living with boyfriend Bob, working making puppets, art classes in college, training and working as a commercial jeweler, then an art jeweler, her art shows, therapy for child abuse issues, first marriage, infertility, divorce, volunteering at a prison, falling in love with an inmate named David and marrying him, feelings of isolation, how making jewelry based on children’s drawings is “freeing”, friendships, and what her art means to her.
Interviewer: Pankowiski, Gina D.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
12/12
Paul, Helen
1 tape
Copy of an interview conducted by WWU Heritage Project. Includes summary of tape No. 45, but no tape. Part II is on one side of L. George tape. Helen Paul was born in Everson, Wash. to a family of 10 children. She picked berries, cherries, tomatoes and onions, following the crops. She had her first child before she was married to her husband, a cook. They lived in Seattle for 20 years. She describes bringing groceries by canoe from Bellingham and work in canneries. She also discusses childhood activities and chores, clothing, birthing, languages, gatherings and traditional crafts. She describes her parents' home and its furnishings.
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1979-1980
12/13
Peterson, Helen
1 tape
Helen Peterson has lived all her life at Neah Bay. Both parents were from chieftain families, and her paternal grandfather was Chief Peter. Helen's family was well to do and lived in a big house. The family was conscious of their status and were expected to live up to certain standards. They were well educated and her father taught school before he bought and operated schooners. These schooners followed the seals to the Bering Sea. Her great grandmother came from Canada and brought slaves with her. Her father also had a store and employed quite a few people. A nursemade took care of Helen. Her parents and aunts taught her how to behave like a princess and taught her noblesse oblige. Helen was sent to Ballard to complete her education. She got along well with whites both in Neah Bay and Ballard. Her best friend was a Swedish girl. She tries to promote understanding between the races. Helen also discusses traditional Makah crafts and activities such as fishing, trading and basket weaving. She discusses their songs and sings a Makah lullaby. She also recalls childhood pastimes, Makah societies, and other social activities. She has tried to keep the language and culture alive and is encouraged by recent progress. She discusses her civic activities.
Interviewer: Bruneau, Kathy
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
12/14-12/15
Pettiford-Wates, Tawnya
6 tapes
Ph.D. African-American playwright, actress, director, and teacher. Interviewed by Kristin K. Thompson. Pettiford-Wates discusses her youth in Harrisburg, PA, experiences of racism in school, her parents' support, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., studying drama in London as a teenager, attending Carnegie-Mellon University, seeing, acting in, and "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf", meeting and marrying Luther, directing and choreographing plays, musicals, and operas, writing and performing her play "Nappy Edges", teaching drama and directing the drama department at Seattle Central Community College, earning her doctorate, and raising three children.
Interviewer: Thompson, Kristin
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
12/16
Phillips, Nikki Dawn
6 tapes
Nikki Dawn Phillips, a transsexual, was born Donald Philip Nicholson and underwent gender surgery in 1979.
Interviewer: Banasky, Mortee
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
12/17
Pickett, Mildred
2 tapes
Biographical Note: Mildred Pickett is part of the Quinault Tribe, and her daughter is Winona Weber, the interviewer. She was born on a scow in the Columbia River, where her mother was cook on a purse seiner. She spent much of her childhood taking care of her younger brother, Buzz. The family moved to Taholah around 1930, and Mildred's father worked building the road between Moclips and Taholah. Mildred's Aunt Irene had an income from her timber claim that provided monetary support. She also describes learning from her grandmother, attending Chemawa Indian School, and the Shaker Religion. Finally, they discuss the current state of alcoholism, addiction, unemployment, and racism on the reservation, as well as Mildred’s work to support students seeking higher education.
Scope and Content Note:On tape 1, side 1, Mildred discusses how Taholah has changed over time, including an increase in houses as families spread out into nuclear households. She also discusses the longhouse, Indian doctors, the Shaker Church, the death of her younger sister, her parents and grandparents, kinship, and head-flattening practices. On tape 1, side 2, they spend more time discussing family, including her grandfather’s polygamous marriage, speaking French and Indigenous languages, the increase in mobility due to cars and the way that has changed parenting, the importance of education, class structures, changing leadership in the tribe due to poor management and alcoholism, Mildred’s work supporting young people seeking higher education, and her experience at Chemawa Indian School. On tape 2, side 1, they spend more time discussing Mildred’s childhood out on the coast and barges, taking care of her younger brother, digging clams and fishing, the Great Depression, strawberry picking, her parents’ discipline, her mother’s swimming and independence, her father’s garden, her parents’ involvement in the Democratic Club and local and state activism, cars, attending school in Tokeland, bullying, and friendship. On tape 2, side 2, Mildred describes her school friends, engaging with Catholicism, attending Chemawa Indian School, babysitting, moving to Seattle during World War II, the Great Depression, land ownership, parenting, discipline, her grandmother’s basket making, camping, making buckskin bread, her racial awakening, and spending time with a wealthy friend.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
12/18
Price, Vernon Lorene Banner
5 tapes
Nurse, farm daughter, mother. Interviewed by Madelaine Moir. Price discusses growing up in Sugar Mountain in North Carolina at length, including details of daily family life and traditions, her family relationships, working on her uncle’s farm, meeting and marrying her husband Forest, the birth of their son and his death at 5 months, the births of their other children, driving the entire family from Maryland to Alaska in a big car loaded with staple foods, living in Alaska, California, Oregon, and then Sequim, WA, her children going to school and their family trips and activities, becoming a nurse at age 42, working in nursing homes and Forest working as an electrical and building inspector, her childrens’ weddings, and her grandchildren.
Interviewer: Moir, Madelaine
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
13/1
Pym, Willamay Strandberg
5 tapes
Theosophist. Interviewed by Barbara Nims. Pym discusses her family history, childhood and adolescence in Seattle, her involvement with the Theosophical Society from a young age, meeting her husband Leonard, building a house with him, raising 2 children, working for Shoreline Community College, her divorce, serving on the National Board of the Theosophical Society, and traveling to Egypt.
Interviewer: Nims, Barabara
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
13/2
Quintero, Pilar Villanueva
1 tape
Biographical Note: Pilar Quintero was born San Jose, Nueva Ecija, Philippines in 1922. She met her husband, a Filipino-American GI during WWII. They later married. He left for the U.S. and she followed later in 1950. She went to work as a beautician in 1957 and in 1970 bought her own shop (Kut and Kurl).
Scope and Content Note:Quintero discusses her childhood in the Philippines, her experiences during World War II, her courtship, separation from her husband, journey to America, and adjustment to American life. She also discusses the Filipino community in Seattle and her activities.
Interviewer: Hinrichs, Clare
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
13/3
Reaber, Margaret Taylor
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Sinkule, Barabara
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
13/4
Richards, Amorette Day
2 tapes
Lillian Amorette Day Richards (1905-1992) headed a school social work program in Tacoma in 1944 and started a similiar program in the Seattle Public Schools in 1948. She retired from the Seattle Public Schools in 1971. Richards and her younger colleague, Lois Logan Horn, collected most of this material.
Interviewer: Sinkule, Barabara
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
13/5
Rodgers, Jennie Ellen Givler
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Holmes, Janet S.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1982
13/6
Rorrison, Esther Simonds
2 tapes
Esther Rorrison's grandmother was born on the Oneida reservation. Her father was a college educator-superintendent. Esther was born in 1895 and the family lived in Stevens Point, then Oshgosh. Their life in the East was formal and well-to-do. The family moved to a farm near Bothell where living conditions were more primitive. Her father attempted to farm but eventually gave up and taught school. After a fire destroyed their house the family lived in a circus tent for a time. Esther attended the U. of Washington, majoring in German and English. The interview also discusses the family's Sunday activities, hardships on the farm, and life on campus before and during WWI.
Interviewer: Dunwoody, Janet
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
13/7
Roush, Gwendolyn
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Mason, Nicole
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
13/8
Russell, Mary
4 tapes
The interviewer is the informant's niece. The interview is a family history. Mary Russell also discusses her experiences as a WWII nurse.
Interviewer: Fawthrop, Nancy
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1979
13/9
Rutelonis, Ruby
4 tapes
Ruby Rutelonis, owner of the Market Spice Shop, Pike Place Market, discusses her family background, her marriages, her various occupations, and her spiritualism.
Interviewer: Frankland, Winn
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1983
Box
missing
Samsel, Mildred
1 tape
Interview concerns Mildred Samsel's mother-in-law, Gertrude Cunningham Samsel. Related accession: Gertrude Cunningham Samsel.
Interviewer: Unknown
Consent Form: Missing
Release Form: Missing
undated
Box/Folder
13/10
Sanchez, Patricia Bumgarner
1 tape
Biographical Note: Patricia grew up around Taholah, recalling going berry picking and slahal games. Her parents worked a variety of jobs, including on a daffodil farm, and her father owned a restaurant in Taholah. They also spent some time in Seattle during World War II. Patricia’s family had a fishing cabin on the river that she remembered fondly. As an adult, Patricia lived in Arizona for some time before returning to Washington. While her mother wasn’t a part of the Shaker Church, Patricia followed her grandparents to the Shaker Church, where she discovered a power of sight.
Scope and Content Note:On tape 1, side 1, Patricia describes meeting Indigenous Olympian Billy Mills, the daffodil farm, Shaker Church, her childhood, fishing, traditional medicine, spirits, ghost stories, and parental discipline. The second side of the tape goes into more detail on the Shaker Church and her gift of sight, marriage, clam digging, her time in Seattle (where she attended the Bailey Gatzert School), and parenting.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
13/11
Sanderman, Judy
6 tapes
Math teacher, world traveler. Interviewed by Rena Bussinger. Sanderman discusses her socially active and musical childhood in Seattle, enjoying math in high school, attending Whitworth College, meeting her husband Dan, teaching high school math, Dan’s suicide, marriage to and separation from Bob and his death from cancer, traveling around the world alone and her annual travels, her love of music and teaching math, friendship with Ward and Mickey, brain surgery to treat hemifacial spasm, and her hopes for the future.
Interviewer: Bussinger, Rena
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
13/12
Savage, Ellen Augusta
3 tapes
Ellen Savage was born in Fallsberg (?) Montana where her father was a hard rock miner. Her mother and grandmother were practical nurses. While her father mined in Alaska the family moved to Missoula where her mother worked as a waitress in a hotel. They all moved to Seattle ca. 1900 and lived first on Yesler and 8th. Her father bought property on 23rd and Jackson and a rooming house which they rented. The lived on 26th near the "Italian Gardens." She recalls when Green Lake froze over and she skated on it. She entered nurses training at Providence Hospital. Savage describes her memories of childhood and family life. She later discusses dating, boyfriends, courtship, then marriage.
Interviewer: Smith, Jill G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
13/13
Schodde, Gretchen
4 tapes
Nurse, founder of the Harmony House Wellness Center. Interviewed by Kristen Olsen. Schodde discusses growing up on a farm, her grandmother’s suicide, her alcohol problem and overcoming it, attending nursing school, traveling to Nepal (Buddhist medicine, hiking and camping, studying village health care) and how it changed her life, spirituality, her vision of creating a Wellness Center in the country, the Nurse Practitioners Act, and founding Harmony House of Union and its development over a decade.
Interviewer: Olsen, Kristen
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
13/14
Shale, Irene Charley
2 tapes
The interviewer is Irene Shale's niece. Irene Shale, a Shoalwater Bay Indian, was born in 1907. She discusses men's work and women's work, crocheting, shamans, her grandmother, potlatch, Shakers, travel, fishing, crabbing, trading, school, working on her father's seiner on Peacock Spit, working on her Model A when she was 17, and hauling gas by canoe to the road canoes near Queets.
Interviewer: Unknown
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
N.D.
13/15
Sides, Lavonda Perrine
4 tapes
Mrs. Sides was a blueprint tracer in the Boeing art department. Before that she had worked as a telephone operator and teacher.
Interviewer: Watson, Susan
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1987
13/16
Sijohn, Eleanor Miller
1 tape
Eleanor's mother was Tulalip, her father a Creek Indian from Oklahoma. Eleanor lived in an orphanage for a time when she was young. She also worked in the fields with her mother and lived with her father in Oklahoma. She discusses family life and differences between Northwest and Oklahoma Indian cultures. She also discusses her education.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
13/17
Slade, Mary Goodwin
1 tape
Biographical Note: Mary Slade, Quinault, was born in 1908. She grew up in Taholah and still lived there at the time of interviewing. Her husband is from Skokomish, and her parents were Catholic (mother) and Presbyterian (father). Her mother attended Cushman Indian school.
Scope and Content Note:In the interview’s sole tape, Mary shares experiences about smoking fish, cutting wood with her father and grandfather, and picking and canning wild berries with her mother. Her mother baked her own bread, and she didn’t taste baker’s bread until she was 12. She talks about different kinds of bread, and cooking food over a campfire. Mary discusses her grandparents and Native American lifespans, and draws a connection between longevity and Natives eating local and unprocessed food. She recalls everyone in her community taking care of each other very consistently, whether raising each other’s houses, providing food if someone ran out, or taking care of and even disciplining each other’s children. Mary talks about corporal punishment and her father being the head of household decision making. She discusses her parents’ different Christian religions and her mother not attending church with the family because she was a Catholic. Mary recalls members of her community and the fixtures of Taholah in her childhood, and particularly remembers Old Man Bob Pope’s longhouse and the dances and group dinners held there. She mentions an Indian Agent living in town and punishing alcoholism, and riding in Freda Charley’s father’s wagon and the lack of cars.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
13/18
Smith, Dorothy
7 tapes
Japanese-American special education teacher, mother. Interviewed by H. Ray Liaw. Smith discusses her ancestry, her childhood in China and living in a Japanese internment camp in Shanghai (she was legally classed as British because her father was from there), her father abandoning the family, moving to Canada, then London, then Seattle at age 15, becoming a Catholic, attending Seattle University, meeting and marrying Ray at age19, raising four children, working at the Rainier Brewery, going back to college at age 27, working as a speech therapist in Edmonds, divorce from Ray and marriage to Dick, reading, her personal politics, feminism, loving her job as a special ed. teacher, and her thoughts about her impending retirement from teaching.
Interviewer: Liaw, H. Ray
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
13/19
Smith, Earnestine Williams-Johnson
2 tapes
African-American nurse, mother, and grandmother. Interviewed by Althea Gayle Glass. Smith discusses her childhood in a sawmill town in Texas and the racial segregation there, her parents’ separation, her church, marrying her school sweetheart Louis, leaving school at 16, raising seven children, working as a hairdresser, cook, and as a nurse in a VA hospital for 26 years, her grand- and great-grandchildren, and traveling to Europe, her friends, a special birthday party, her son’s death, and aging.
Interviewer: Glass, Althea G.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1993
13/20
Storey, Ethel P.
4 tapes
Ethel Leach was born in Rest Hope, ND. She married William Taft Storey and the couple moved to Seattle. Storey discusses the Great Depression and hardships of early life, abortion, child bearing and motherhood.
Interviewer: Lawry, Tina
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
14/1
Svec, Margaret E.
3 tapes
English professor. Interviewed by Nicole Mason. Svec discusses her childhood in Iowa, her father’s death, winning a national poetry contest, attending Drake University (and later teaching English there) and the UW, founding the Everett Community College English department and serving as its entire faculty, meeting and marrying Jerry and their relationship, her long-time friendship with Pat and Pat’s death, enjoying and following the country music band “Ranch Romance”, feminism, friendship, and aging.
Interviewer: Mason, NIcole
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
14/2
Swanson, Alice Eleanor
5 tapes
In the interview, Swanson mainly describes her family life, her career as a first grade teacher at Bryant Elementary School in Seattle ca. 1920s-1960s, and her teaching philosophy.
Interviewer: Annaed, Melody Marie
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1983
14/3
Terayama, Toshie
7 tapes
Japanese-American internment camp survivor, landscape architect, and farmer. Interviewed by Melissa Kanaya. Terayama discusses her childhood in Wapato, WA and in Japanese internment camps in WY and MT during WWII, living conditions and school and in the camps, working on the family vegetable farm, studying Spanish at the UW, her experiences of racial discrimination, meeting and marrying her husband Kazuo and farming strawberries with him, raising her daughter Karen and their relationship, serving as the first female president of her church and volunteering there, golfing, and working as a landscape architect.
Interviewer: Kanaya, Melissa
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1995
14/4
Thomas, Maybelle Cultee
1 tape
Maybelle discusses her mother and her grandmother who lived on Squaxin Island. She also discusses basket making, her mother trading baskets at Pt. Defiance, school at St. George's and Tulalip, picking hops and berries, bone games, dances, and her work as a welder in the shipyards during World War II.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
14/5
Thompson, Lucille Mildred
5 tapes
Thompson discusses her early life, the Great Depression, and World War II.
Interviewer: Rundberg-Bunney, Karen
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1985
14/6
Tinder, Cheryl
6 tapes
Fashion model, mother of six. Interviewed by Julie Marasigan. Tinder discusses her childhood in the Mt. Baker area, the early death of her brother and her mother’s mental illness, the time a man tried to kidnap her, her good relationship with her father, being overweight as a child, modeling for Frederick and Nelson’s department store and others and running her own fashion shows, her brief marriage to Patrick at age 16, her father’s death, traveling to Europe, meeting and marrying Ivan and their relationship, converting to Catholicism, running the family auto shop, the births and raising of her six children, gallbladder surgery, and reconciling with her mother shortly before her mother’s death.
Interviewer: Marasigan, Julie L
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
Box
missing
Torgerson, Ruth
2 tapes
[No information available]
Interviewer: Missing
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
undated
Box/Folder
14/7
Turner, Dorothy Mae
4 tapes
Describes family life in black sharecropping family in Mississippi; migration to Missouri, Michigan, and Seattle; and life and work in those places.
Interviewer: Rice, Mary L.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1983
14/8
Underwood, Geraldine George
1 tape
Biographical Note: Geraldine moved around a lot during her childhood, especially after her mother died. She was mainly raised by her Aunt Nellie, who lived on the south side of Aberdeen, and Geraldine spent most of her free time playing outside with other children. She attended St. George Catholic School in Tacoma for several years, then dropped out of high school in the tenth grade when she became pregnant. She also describes working in seafood packing and canneries along the West Coast in order to support her children.
Scope and Content Note:The first side of tape 1 is extremely short, but Geraldine describes playing outside during childhood, especially on Peacock Spit, and begins to tell a story about finding a dead man with a lot of money around him. The second side of the tape describes her childhood in detail. She spent some of her life living with her mother, but after she died, her father took them to Tokeland. They eventually moved to Aberdeen, where she was under the care of her Aunt Nellie. She described playing outside, attending St. George Catholic school, what they ate, and dropping out of high school when she got pregnant. As an adult, she travelled up and down the West coast, working in seafood packing and canneries.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
14/9
Vail, Charity
3 tapes
Charity Vail was a clerical worker and a bookkeeper.
Interviewer: Wilson, Lisa
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1986
14/10
Valentinetti, Aurora
4 tapes
Italian-American drama teacher, puppeteer, and opera director. Interviewed by Elizabeth Whitford. Valentinetti discusses her childhood with her arts-loving father and extended family in the Italian community in West Seattle, attending a multi-ethnic school, majoring in drama at the UW and ultimately earning her master's, her early decision not to marry, directing theater at St. Mark’s, being a puppeteer and running her own puppetry company within the UW drama department, singing opera, teaching children’s drama classes, and directing the Bainbridge Light Opera.
Interviewer: Whitford, Elizabeth
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1996
14/11
Van Allan, Cheryl L Van
1 tape
Cheryl Van Allan, born 1957, at the time of the interview was 24 years old and working as a personnel councelor. The interview discusses the course of her career, marriage and family, and her education at the U. of Washington. She likes a traditional role, and puts her husband's career ahead of her own. She wants to be a mother, volunteer and part-time worker.
Interviewer: Lore Mayo, Barabara A
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
14/12
Verkist, Wave Lapman
1 tape
Copy of an interview conducted by WWH Project. Wave Verkist's grandparents homesteaded in Mountainview. She discusses her mother, who was a school teacher before she married, her childhood, relations with Indians, school, her writing, her children, husband and family life. The tape begins with an excerpt from Verkist's interview, but continues with excerpts from interviews with M. Steiner, Elizabeth Bailey, Helen Paul, M. Cable, Louisa George and Lucile Mason. Two pages of notes describe contents of this tape.
Interviewer: Anderson, Kathryn
Consent Form: No
Release Form: No
1980
Box
missing
Ward, Leona
1 tape
The second cassette has Leona Ward and Elizabeth Bailey on the same side.
Interviewer: Unknown
Consent Form: Missing
Release Form: Missing
undated
Box/Folder
14/13
Ware, Florestine
3 tapes
Civic leader of Seattle, Washington. Florestine Roberts Ware was born in 1915, and moved to Seattle in the 1940s. She was a small business owner during the 50s and 60s. Ware was elected secretary of King County Foster Parents, Inc. She was a caravan leader and spokesman for the North West Convention to the poor peoples campaign, 1967; and a candidate to the U.S. House of representatives, 1968. She served on the Seattle King County Equal Opportunity Board executive committee, 1967- ; Seattle Treatment Center Board, 1969- ; Model City Citizen Health Advisory Board chairman, 1969- ; Model City Representative to the Public Defender Board; Consultant for Summer Institute for Seattle Public Schools (Community and Urban Problems); Committee Chairman for writing of the Title Eight Drop-Out Program, Seattle School District no.1; Committee for Career Opportunities Project Planners, Superintendent of Public Instruction office; Interviewer-Supervisor, Auerback Corporation for the evaluation of Seattle Work Incentive Program; executive secretary, Seattle King County Economic Opportunity Board of Trustees, 1970- ;Consultant to Triple T Project (June 1970) Government Project for Teachers under the direction of the State Superintendent of Schools; Member of the Washington State (Presidents White House Conference on Nutrition and Health); vice-chairman, Central Seattle Communiity Council; and Consultant on Urban Problems and Poverty Programs. Mrs. Ware died in 1981.
Interviewer: Lash, Marsha
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: No
1980
14/14
Watkins, Sylvia
6 tapes
Medical transciptor, writer, mother. Interviewed by Misty Melissa Weaver. Watkins discusses her childhood in Seattle during WWII, noticing sexism and racism in high school, Catholicism, meeting, marrying, and divorcing Wayne, learning Spanish, marrying Arthur and their separation, raising three children on her own, discovering the world of ideas and rebellion through television and radio in the 1960s, living in Switzerland briefly, meeting and taking classes from psychics and astrologers, working various jobs, discussing metaphysics and philosophy with her friends, traveling to Peru, being involved in the Prison Awareness Project, working at Swedish Hospital doing medical transcription, and her independence.
Interviewer: Weaver, Misty Melissa
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
14/15
Wheeler, Jeanie Shaw
3 tapes
Mrs. Wheeler was a teacher at Humptulips, New London, and Hoquiam 1898-1902. Later she worked as an apple packer in Eastern Washington.
Interviewer: Stewart, Leticia D.
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1983
14/16
White, Bernice Courville
1 tape
Bernice White is a Muckleshoot. She was chairperson of the Muckleshoot tribe from 1955-1963. Her interview discusses her childhood, education, her children and family life.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
14/17
Whitfield, Margaret Fritsch
3 tapes
Dancer (flapper), secretary, mother. Interviewed by Laura Sylvia. Whitfield discusses her childhood in New Orleans, abuse at the hands of her mother, aunt, stepfather, and family friends, disliking Catholic school, dancing to big bands on a Mississippi River paddleboat, her father’s death and arranging his funeral, working in Washington, D.C. for the Veterans Administration, meeting and marrying Reginald, her husband’s gambling, Prohibition, living in Atlanta, raising three children, vacationing in Seattle every summer and eventually moving there, divorcing Reginald, rediscovering her love of dancing, and her involvement in her local senior center.
Interviewer: Sylvia, Laura
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1993
14/18
Whitish, Rachel Brignone
1 tape
Rachel Whitish is a Shoalwater Bay Indian. Rachel discusses her mother, who was head cook for her grandfather's purse seining crew at Peacock Spit and who made, sold and traded baskets. Rachel also discusses her extended family, education, her 2 years in Children's Orthopedic Hospital, work as a crab shaker, and her tribal activities, including chairmanship of the tribe. She also discusses her children and grandchild and observes that the women in her family were independent.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
14/19
Williams, Bernice Sheldon
1 tape
Bernice was raised on the Tulalip reservation. She discusses her childhood activities, and her mother who, in addition to housework, made baskets and cooked for her husband's logging crew. Bernice's mother and her aunt also ministered to the sick. Bernice drove for her mother from age 10. She also discusses school, discipline, and chores. She attended the Haskell Institute in Kansas. Her first marriage was arranged and she lived in Oklahoma for four years with this husband. Rachel recalls when Indians received citizenship in 1924 and her father travelled around urging them to vote. She also recalls when Indians buried their dead in trees and remembers longhouses.
Interviewer: Weber, Winona
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1981
14/20
Williams, Jeanette Klemptner
6 tapes
Born in Seattle in 1918, Jeanette Williams attended Mercer Grade School and graduated from Queen Anne High School. She attended the Cornish School of Music and received degrees from the University of Washington and the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago as a violin major. She married in the 1940s and settled in Seattle, raising her two children in View Ridge. In 1962, Williams became chairperson of the King County Democrats. Running for City Council in 1969, Williams stressed two issues: establishing City programs for senior citizens and issues surrounding turning Sand Point Naval Base into a park. Williams served on City Council from 1970 until 1989, when she was defeated in her bid for a sixth term after a fiercely competitive race against Cheryl Chow. Williams chaired six committees during her tenure on City Council, including: Human Resources and Judiciary 1970-1977; Transportation 1978-1981 and 1988-1989; Labor 1982-1983; City Operations 1984-1985; Parks and Public Grounds 1986-1987; and Intergovernmental Relations 1986-1989. One of Williams' earliest accomplishments was the establishment of the Fair Campaign Practices Ordinance in 1971 and subsequent amendments. Legislation included a matching fund program and required candidates to list their contributors. The City ordinance was used by the State later when it drafted a campaign reform law. Two other important projects in Williams' tenure include construction of the West Seattle Bridge and acquisition of Kubota Gardens in the Rainier Beach area. The Office of Hearing Examiner was also created under Williams. Established in 1973, it was a judicial body ruling on land-use disputes. Williams successfully advocated the creation of the Seattle Women’s Commission which was established in 1971. Her work on the women's issues was recognized at the first annual Seattle Women’s Summit on October 19, 2002. She also worked on issues related to equal rights in housing and employment. As the Chair of the Parks and Public Grounds Committee Williams worked on issues related to the Disney proposal for Seattle Center redevelopment. Williams' interest in the development of Sand Point Magnuson Park existed many years prior to its creation in 1974. Williams continued to be active in civic duties after leaving City Council. In 1999, she was appointed by the mayor to the Sand Point Blue Ribbon Committee, charged to review the park’s plan and make recommendations. She was the Chairperson of the Sand Point Liaison Committee during the 1990s. Williams served on the Advisory Council of the Seattle-Chongqing Sister City Association and served as a member of United Neighbors. In 2003, she was named to an 18-member Citizen Advisory Panel on Council Elections that studied the pros and cons of district, proportional, at-large, and other forms of representation. Williams died October 24, 2008.
Interviewer: Gaston, Chris
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
15/1 - 15/3
Wilson, Barbara Jean Van Ark
7 tapes
Wilson was active in women's rights within the Presbyterian Church in the Seattle area and in Seattle interfaith women's group. She worked for inclusive language in the Bible and in worship.Presbytery President and Presbyterian Church elder. Interviewed by Irene Andrews. Wilson discusses her childhood in California, working as an aircraft riveter during WWII, dancing, meeting and marrying Jack, attending teachers' college, teaching kindergarten, raising 3 children, her husband's ordination and their move to Washington, living in a Maori parish in New Zealand for two years, her involvement in the women's movement, serving as president of the North Puget Sound Presbytery, as an elder of her church, and on the Coalition on Women and Religion, working to get the ERA passed and to get inclusive laguage into church liturgy, worship, and documents, the position of women in the Presbyterian Church, travelling the world with Jack, and her heart trouble.
Interviewer: Andrews, Irene
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1992
15/4 - 15/5
Wolf, Hazel
13 tapes
Hazel Anna Wolf (1898 - 2000) was a prominent Seattle activist who fought for feminism, human rights, labor and environmental protection throughout her 101 years. She was born in Victoria, British Columbia, an experienced a childhood largely dominated by class and poverty issues. Activism was the mark of her lifetime: during the depression era, she struggled to organize unions while employed in the WPA. For the rest of her working years (1949 – 1965) she was a secretary for civil rights lawyer John Caughlan. She moved to Seattle in 1923 as a struggling single mother and became interested in labor issues. She was a member of the Communist Party from the 1930s into the 1940s, and was active in immigration issues, at one point nearly being deported to her native Canada. By the time of McCarthyism, she was being targeted by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service as a subversive foreign national. Her deportation cases lasted from 1949-1963, and, though she later became a U.S. citizen, she never made any apologies for her Communist affiliation. In the early sixties a friend introduced Wolf to the Audubon Society, which spurred a decade-spanning love for and activism in environmental causes. Hazel joined the Seattle Audubon Society and was secretary for 37 years until her death. An exuberant organizer, she is also credited with the creation of 21 other Audubon chapters in this state. Her environmental activism also reached beyond Audubon. In the late 1970’s Wolf revitalized the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs, and served as its president in 1976-77. She began editing this organization’s newsletter, Outdoors West in 1981 and continued to do so until 1999. Her causes also led her to international territory. Wolf visited Nicaragua five times from 1983-1994, for both environmental and political reasons. She was inspired by the Sandinista's connection between environmental stewardship and democratic socialism. She received the Association of Biologists and Ecologists of Nicaragua award for "work for the conservation of nature" in 1985. In 1990, she visited as an official observer of the elections. Following from a core belief that “everything connects,” Wolf supported a great number of social justice causes in conjunction with her environmental work. In 1979 she helped organize the Indian Conservationist Conference. She is credited with helping found the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, an organization that addresses urban environmental concerns of minority and low-income communities. Because of her commitment to outreach to urban children, Audubon created the “Kids for the Environment Fund” in honor of her 100th birthday. Wolf received numerous accolades for her activist work, including the Sol Feinstein Award in 1978, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility's Paul Beeson Peace Award in 1995, the National Audubon Society's Medal of Excellence in 1997, and Seattle's Spirit of America Award in 1999.
Interviewer: Starbuck, Susan
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1980
15/6
Wright, Marjorie Louise
5 tapes
Mormon, Sunday school teacher, mother. Interviewed by Donna M. Carter. Wright discusses her childhood in Oklahoma, the Great Depression, attending the Cadet Nursing Corp., meeting and marrying Jim, raising six children, converting to the Mormon faith, moving to California, her children’s lives, teaching Sunday school and involvement in church activities, serving as her temple’s relief society president, publicly opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, her hysterectomy, and traveling the country with her husband.
Interviewer: Carter, Donna M
Consent Form: Yes
Release Form: Yes
1998
Box
16-23
Cassette Tapes
The cassette tapes are arranged by interviewee last name.
The cassette tapes cannot be played due to preservation concerns. Users may be able to obtain a reproduction for a fee by contacting Special Collections.

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Exhibitions--Washington (State)
  • Personal Papers/Corporate Records (University of Washington)
  • Women--Washington (State)--History--Sources

Corporate Names

  • Washington Women's Heritage Project--Achives
  • Women's Network of Whatcom County--History--Sources

Titles within the Collection

  • Curtain Call, Grandmother!

Other Creators

  • Personal Names
    • Aliesan, Jody (creator)
    • Alldredge, Etta (creator)
    • Andrews, Irene (creator)
    • Arnold, Madelyn (creator)
    • Baker, Beverly (creator)
    • Best, Helen (creator)
    • Bianchi, Kathleen Dolores (creator)
    • Bianchi, Susan Quant (creator)
    • Binyon, Saranel (creator)
    • Bowers, Delphine (creator)
    • Burgess, Diana (creator)
    • Bussinger, Rena (creator)
    • Butler, Patricia Louise (creator)
    • Buxton, Lindsay (creator)
    • Caldwell, Shirley (creator)
    • Card, Allison (creator)
    • Carlton, Olive Milbourne (creator)
    • Carson, Miriamma Mae (creator)
    • Carter, Donna M (creator)
    • Christenson-Loll, A. Jill (creator)
    • Covey, Margaret Spaight (creator)
    • Crawford, Cheryl L (creator)
    • Crawford, Ruth Sarah Lindblad (creator)
    • Creasy, Pamela (creator)
    • Crouse, Bethany (creator)
    • Dady, Lisa (creator)
    • Doster, Martha Charlotte (creator)
    • Dressler, Laura (creator)
    • Eby, Susan Jane (creator)
    • Faith, Hope (creator)
    • Fehrenbacher, Dana Anne (creator)
    • Fehrman, Pamela Anne (creator)
    • Fortner, Paige (creator)
    • Garcia, Adelina Hannah Skultka (creator)
    • Gaston, Chris (creator)
    • Glass, Althea Gayle (creator)
    • Gould, Ethel E. Beieler (Ethel Evelyn Beieler), 1910- (creator)
    • Graff, April Amanda (creator)
    • Guerrero, Debbie (creator)
    • Hall, Doris Lee (creator)
    • Hallock, Barbara (creator)
    • Harris, Susan Dee (creator)
    • Haugen, Joan D (creator)
    • Henry, Jan (creator)
    • Hervey, Katherin (creator)
    • Holan, Stephanie (creator)
    • Hull, Bryley J (creator)
    • Jacobs, Sue-Ellen (creator)
    • Johnson, Antoinette M (creator)
    • Jull, Mary Lou Ghangraw (creator)
    • Justice, Mauris Harla (creator)
    • Kanaya, Melissa (creator)
    • Keller, Lynne (creator)
    • Kelley, Evelyn Rosalen Holdridge (creator)
    • King, Dorothy Hill (creator)
    • Kingsbury, Marcelle Frances Dunning (creator)
    • Kuhel, Chris (creator)
    • Kurzweil, Jenny (creator)
    • Leggett, Deanna (creator)
    • Lewis, Daphne Renee (creator)
    • Liaw, H. Ray (creator)
    • Lundberg, Elsie Elizabeth Carlson (creator)
    • Lunstrum, Libby (creator)
    • Magonegil-Wontoch, Robin (creator)
    • Mangan, Katherine Devine (creator)
    • Marasigan, Julie L (creator)
    • Masakella, Aisha Shammar (creator)
    • Mason, Nicole (creator)
    • McAteer, Irene Maryrose Ethier (creator)
    • McKenzie, Heidi (creator)
    • Meuter, Linda Cathleen (creator)
    • Moir, Madelaine (creator)
    • Moulton, Shannon (creator)
    • Nims, Barbara S (creator)
    • Ninomiya, Reiko (creator)
    • O'Grady, Julie (creator)
    • Olsen, Kristen (creator)
    • Palmer, Elizabeth Chenoweth (creator)
    • Pankowski, Gina (creator)
    • Peele, Janet L (creator)
    • Peterson, Sally Christine (creator)
    • Pettiford-Wates, Tawnya (creator)
    • Price, Vernon Lorene Banner (creator)
    • Pym, Willamay Strandberg (creator)
    • Roush, Gwendolyn (creator)
    • Sanderman, Judy (creator)
    • Sawicki, Amanda (creator)
    • Schodde, Gretchen Ann (creator)
    • Smith, Dorothy (creator)
    • Smith, Ernestine Johnson (creator)
    • Starbuck, Susan (creator)
    • Svec, Margaret E (creator)
    • Swackhammer, Lynne (creator)
    • Sylvia, Laura (creator)
    • Terayama, Toshie (creator)
    • Thompson, Kristin K (creator)
    • Tinder, Cheryl Anne (creator)
    • Torres-Henrick, Angela (creator)
    • Valentinetti, Aurora Stella (creator)
    • Wallmichrath, Randi (creator)
    • Watkins, Sylvia Ann Lyen Reithaar (creator)
    • Weaver, Misty Melissa (creator)
    • Whitfield, Margaret Fritsch (creator)
    • Whitford, Elizabeth (creator)
    • Williams, Jeanette K. (Jeanette Klemptner) (creator)
    • Wilson, Barbara Jean Van Ark (creator)
    • Wright, Barbara Marie (creator)
    • Wright, Marjorie Louise (creator)
    Corporate Names
    • Washington Women's Heritage Project (creator)
    • Washington Women's Heritage Project. University of Washington Office. Oral History Project (creator)