Local history

Sara partying

       I have been interested in local history since I worked as a librarian/archivist  for Sara Collins at the Arlington Public Library.   Sara's keen intellect and avid search for materials formed our  local history library.  Her spirit and commitment  helped to create and support a community of productive scholars.  Sara got me hooked on finding out as much as I can about the place where I live.  Now that I live in Oregon, I am enjoying lots of fine presentations about the lives of our Portland forbears. One of the best events is the History Pub at the McMenamin's Kennedy School.

Kennedy School

Kennedy school ca. 1920

     The McMenamin brothers buy old buildings, renovate them, and re-purpose them as brewpubs, music venues, historic hotels, restaurants, and theatre pubs.   They have a historian  on staff who researches the past of the buildings.  The whimsical art  that decorates the newly renovated buildings is an expression of the place's history. The McMenamins turned  the Kennedy School, an elementary school built in 1915, into a hotel, movie theater, and premier gathering place.
     McMenamins venues are home to very popular science, history, and classical music pubs.   The free monthly History Pub at the Kennedy School  features speakers and panels about aspects of Oregon's history that are somewhat outside of mainstream history.  I have heard panels of survivors of the Vanport flood, an overview of  Oregon's outlaws, elders remembering neighborhoods razed for urban renewal, feminist  legislators from  the 1970s, a survey of African-American murals in Portland, etc.

Central Library, Portland

Spindrift

     On Monday old friends and coworkers met at the History Pub  to hear about a great Oregon librarian, Mary Frances Isom.  In what had been the  school's auditorium, we settled into comfortable couches with our good pub food  and prepared to be edified.  We knew about Mary Frances, of course.  She came to the Library Association of Portland in 1901.  Before her death in 1920 she had built the Central library, along with 16 branch libraries and a complex service network involving 146 schools and 65 other agencies.   She left money to start a pension fund for her staff.  And she built Spindrift, the cottage at the Oregon coast, which was bequeathed to the library staff.  A hundred years later, the staff still owns and enjoys the cottage.

Mary Frances Isom

      Mary Frances was a wealthy woman, who had a dressmaker come to her house once a week. She  relied on her Swedish housekeeper to maintain a large house and help her entertain.  (Isn't that what we all want, a wife?)  She was  able to take vacations for months at a time  She was one of a small group of progressive civic and artistic leaders who transformed Portland.
     In other words,  Mary Frances was not like us.  But the speaker teared up when she quoted Mary Frances about the value of public libraries in the life of a community.  So did many of the  librarians in the audience.  We are not all movers and shakers, but we have all been part of a noble endeavor.