By Janet Wendt, Elizabeth Nielsen, and Rachel Lilley
Title: Buena Maris Mockmore Papers, 1916-2010
Predominant Dates: 1939-1969
ID: MSS Mockmore
Primary Creator: Steinmetz, Buena Margason Maris Mockmore (1898-1967)
Extent: 0.7 cubic feet. More info below.
Arrangement: The Buena Maris Mockmore Papers are arranged in three series: 1. Personal and Biographical Materials, 1939-1969; 2. Oregon State College and Iowa State University, 1916-1967; 3. The Manhattan Project; Hanford, Washington, 1943-2010. Materials within each series are arranged chronologically.
Date Acquired: 00/00/1996
Languages of Materials: English [eng]
Buena Selma Margason was born in Salem, Oregon on August 2, 1898 to Eldridge G. Margason and Margaret L. Hart Margason. In 1900, the Margasons were living in Lacomb, Oregon, a small community about ten miles northeast of Lebanon, where Eldridge taught school (likely in the Lacomb schoolhouse). By 1920, the family had moved to Portland where Eldridge worked as a physician.
Mockmore attended the University of Oregon briefly before her marriage to William Homer Maris in 1920. Maris completed a Master of Science degree in Agriculture at OSC in 1918, authored the OSC alma mater Carry Me Back, and was the brother of long-time OSC Extension Service Director Paul V. Maris. Shortly after they married, Maris – as supervisor of agricultural training for the Rehabilitation Division of the Veterans’ Federal Bureau in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho – was called to Washington, D.C. to “study problems of land settlement for disabled ex-service men.” While there, Mockmore attended George Washington University. Their daughter, Marjorie, was born in 1925 while they were in Washington, D.C.
In September 1926, the family returned to Oregon from Washington D.C., travelling overland by car and finally settling in Oak Harbor, Washington, where they purchased a plot of land. Homer was hired by the College of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington – now the University of Puget Sound – and planned to begin teaching in Fall 1931. In August 1933, however, Maris was the victim of a fatal hit-and-run while bicycling home from an event in town. After Homer’s death, Mockmore herself attended the College of Puget Sound, completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1936.
After graduation, Mockmore taught school in Tacoma for a year before coming to Oregon State College. While at OSC, Mockmore taught courses in Household Administration and family relationships, while pursuing a Master of Science degree in Home Economics. She completed her Master’s thesis, “An Analysis of 150 College Students' Attitudes Toward Content of a Course in Family Relationships,” in 1939.
Upon the retirement of Dean of Women Kate W. Jameson in 1941, Maris was selected by the State Board to take up the mantle, serving in that capacity until 1948. From September 1, 1943 to September 1, 1944, however, she took a leave of absence to serve as the de facto "Dean of Women" for female employees of the DuPont Company at the Manhattan Project’s Hanford, Washington site. Maris’s position – alternately referred to as “Dean of Women” and the “Director of Women’s Activities” – supervised all work done by women at the Hanford site; she received a War Department citation for this work.
Mockmore returned to her position as Dean of Women at OSC after her work on the Manhattan Project. In 1946, she married Dr. Charles Mockmore, the head of civil engineering at OSC. When Dr. Mockmore died of a heart attack in 1953, Mockmore again left OSC to join the staff at Iowa State University (ISU), where she worked as an Extension Specialist in child development and family life. In the seven years she spent at ISU, Mockmore developed a two-step program aimed at improving communication and understanding between parents and their teenaged children by speaking to high school assemblies first, followed by parents' meetings. In just one year, she spoke to over 17,000 young people as part of this program.
Mockmore returned to Oregon after marrying Avery Steinmetz in 1960. She served as the President of the Oregon Home Economics Association for two years, was active in the American Association of University Women, and continued to teach and lecture on topics relating to family life and child development. She passed away in Portland, Oregon on December 18, 1967. Mockmore was survived by her husband, Avery; a daughter from her first marriage, Mrs. Marjorie Maris Peterson; and four stepchildren: Charlotte Mockmore Spring, Regina T. Mockmore, William E. Steinmetz, and Gretchen E. Bunnell.
More Extent Information: 2 boxes, including 39 photographs
Statement on Access: Collection is open for research.
Acquisition Note: Roughly half the materials in the collection were donated to the University Archives by Marjorie Maris Peterson, Mockmore's daughter, in 1996. An addition to the collection, specifically the materials found in Series 3, were donated to the Special Collections and Archives Research Center by Washington State University's Hanford History Project in 2016.
Related Materials:
The Special Collections and Archives Research Center's holdings include numerous and extensive collections pertaining to home economics extension work in Oregon, including the Extension Service Records (RG 111) and the College of Home Economics and Education Records (RG 141). The Dean of Women's Office Records (RG 057) and Dean of Women's Office Photographs (P 097) document the activities and role of the Dean of Women at Oregon State. Additional collections relating specifically to Mockmore include the News and Communication Service Records (RG 203) and Harriet's Photograph Collection (P HC).
Additional collections containing material relating to the Hanford site and/or the Manhattan Project include the Hanford Site Forty-Year Environmental Data Collection (MSS Hanford), the Nuclear Science Technical Reports Collection (MSS Reports), the Nuclear Free America Records (MSS NFA), the Paul J. Persiani Papers (MSS Persiani), the E. Dale Trout Papers (MSS Trout), the John C. Ringle Papers (MSS Ringle), and the Theodore Rockwell Papers (MSS Rockwell).
Preferred Citation: Buena Maris Mockmore Papers (MSS Mockmore), Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
Finding Aid Revision History: A finding aid for this collection was originally prepared in 1997 and was updated in 2016 to bring it into compliance with current descriptive practices and standards. This guide supersedes the 2016 collection-level finding aid and incorporates the major addition to the collection received later in 2016.
Steinmetz, Buena Margason Maris Mockmore (1898-1967)
Child development.
Deans of women--Oregon--Corvallis.
Groves, Leslie R., 1896-1970
Hanford Site (Wash.)
History of Science
Home economics--Study and teaching--Oregon.
Home economics extension work--Oregon.
Iowa State College. Extension Service
Manhattan Project (U.S.)
Oregon State College. Dean of Women
Oregon State College. Federal Cooperative Extension Service
Steinmetz, Buena Margason Maris Mockmore, 1898-1967
Teenagers.
University History
Photographic prints.
The materials in Series 2 document Mockmore’s extension work at Oregon State College and Iowa State University. The majority of the materials – which include speech and presentation transcripts and notes, and television and radio scripts – date from the 1940s to the 1950s, and address topics relating to family relationships, child development, and rural homemaking. Notes for a television presentation about the White House Conference on the Welfare of Families, Children, and Youth are also included. The publications and teaching aids include an article – "Lasting Values in a Changing World" – published in the Journal of Home Economics (1958) on handouts about family relationships issued by Oregon State College Home Economics Extension from 1938 to 1941, and referred to as "Maris's Mimeos;" and questionnaires and handouts about family relationships, teenagers, and children.
Also included in this series are 28 black and white photographs dating from 1916 to 1967. Roughly half the photographs in this series are studio portraits of Mockmore; the remainder include candid and posed group portraits documenting Mockmore's speaking engagements and teaching. Mockmore is pictured accepting the gavel of office in May 1962 as the new President of the Oregon State Home Economics Association, and her 1916, Jefferson High School graduation photograph is also included. Photographers include Josie Wolfe (Salem, Oregon), Gladys Gilbert Studio (Portland, Oregon), Hill Studio (Ames, Iowa), and Hise Studio (Corvallis, Oregon).
Of special note in Series 2 are questions submitted by teenagers in the 1940s and 1950s at Mockmore's family life meetings (Box-folder 1.27).
Series 3 documents Mockmore’s work on the Manhattan Project at Hanford, Washington. Included in this series are flyers and memos dating from Mockmore’s time at Hanford, and her later reminiscences regarding her work on the project. Correspondence with Lieutenant General Leslie Groves regarding his plans to write a book on the project, and his requests for Mockmore’s input and insight, is also included. Two black and white studio portraits of Mockmore are included in the folder commemorating the Hanford's site 50th anniversary.
Also included in this series are materials documenting the life and work of Glenn Seaborg, an American chemist involved in the synthesis, discovery, and investigation of ten transuranium elements. Seaborg’s work with the Metallurgical Laboratory University of Chicago in 1942 informed the processes used to produce plutonium at the Hanford site. Nine color photographs of Seaborg and Mockmore’s daughter, Marjorie Maris Peterson, are included in this series. The photographs were taken at a book signing for Seaborg’s book, Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.