Caroline Wilkins oral history interview, October 8, 2019

CHRIS PETERSEN: Today is October 8th, 2019. And we're in the Valley Library with Caroline Wilkins. And we're going to talk to her about her life in politics and at OSU, and anything else that comes up. So I'll start at the beginning and ask you where were you born?

CAROLINE WILKINS: Good morning, Chris. Well, first of all, it's "Caroline" [/līn/].

CP: It's "Caroline" [/līn/]. I'm sorry.

CW: I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas at Spohn Hospital, May 12th, 1937. It overlooked the Corpus Christi Bay. And I had a sister, 13 years older than me, who had learned to drive. When mother and I, we were in the hospital, she and my daddy went to the DeSoto dealers and bought a blue DeSoto to take me home in. And home was not in Corpus Christi. It was in the outlying farm areas.

CP: And can you tell me a little more about your family background?

CW: Well, my mother was a registered nurse. My father started out as a 00:01:00carpenter. He learned on the job with his father. And by the time I was born, he was doing double duty. He had taken over one of the family gins, cotton gins, and ran that. Of course, that's very seasonal. And then he had moved up to general contacting, using his skills as a carpenter.

CP: So you grew up in a farming area, but not on a farm?

CW: That's right. We lived at, what we called, at the gin. Our house was there on the property with the gin. And I said there was family. My father was raised by his aunt Caroline. His mother had died in giving birth to his younger sister. But the sister lived and she was adopted by a close family. And my father went 00:02:00to live with his uncle and aunt. And his older brother was old enough that he stayed with the father. And they were carpenters.

CP: Did you have any connection yourself to the cotton gin?

CW: I was always warned not to go and jump into the cottonseed because it could collapse and smother us. But of course, we dug into it, and play with it. It was a fun place. It was also a very noisy place and people that watched the cotton stands, which were where the cottonseed was removed from the cotton-it was a very loud area of the gin. And all of the people that I know were people who 00:03:00were in World War II who practiced shooting a lot without any ear muffs or anything, hazards of the day, of the times.

CP: What were you interested in as a child?

CW: Being in the country, the nearest homes were a quarter a mile away. They were spread out. Watching the seasons, which were not many as we at [sic]-it's just two seasons in South Texas. I was interested in anything and everything. War time came on as I was getting school age. And I went to boarding school for 00:04:00the entire time of the war. I went with my footlocker and my book of ration stamps. Everything was rationed, gas, tires. Of course, I didn't need those but folks needed those-they carpooled a lot to get us to the boarding school, in the first place, and then back on weekends. It was an interesting time. Actually, being in a boarding school like that, and my sister having moved away when I was four years old-she married and moved away-it was a nice social gathering time for me.

CP: So it was a positive experience, boarding school.

CW: Yes. My brother-in-law went away to the service and cousins did. But I was insulated, so to speak.

CP: Was there any family connection to politics? Or any interests at that point?

CW: Oh yes. Mother and Daddy were what we called precinct committee people and they would take me with them when they went to vote. And I would be given a sample ballot to do it as I wanted to while they voted real ballots. My sister, I said, had married when I was four. And she married the son of the county commissioner. And the first campaigning I did was for the county commissioner, although they hadn't assigned me to do that. At those times, when you went grocery shopping, there weren't baskets to put the kids in. And mother would sit me down on the checkout stand, if that was open. And people would gather around 00:06:00and talk to me, and ask me all kinds of questions, keep me entertained while mother was shopping. And that's when I told them I was voting for-as I said-my sister's father-in-law.

CP: What precipitated the boarding school move? I mean, you mentioned it happened during the war years, but was there a reason beyond that?

CW: Well, we were out in the countryside and, as I said, tires and gasoline were rationed. And many of the family sent their children to boarding school.

CP: So it's more of a resource allocation decision then?

CW: Exactly, yeah.

CP: Interesting. It sounded like it was a social experience. Was it a good academic experience for you as well? Did you thrive as you were in the school setting?

CW: Yes, because there was discipline and timing of things. And after school, 00:07:00you had play time, and snack-you had a snack and play time, or vice versa. And then seems like an hour before dinner, we would went to study hall and went to a desk and studied. When the war was over and I was on my own, I would come home from school, get a snack and do my homework, get it out of the way. So yes, it was a time for learning-as well as the academic things-learning to schedule yourself. On into high school, and by that time, the family had moved into a town, built a new home-built in 1949-and moved into town. And I could walk to 00:08:00school, and walk home for lunch if I wanted to, or I could eat at the cafeteria. And I would usually walk home for lunch because I had a thing of making pralines-it seems like the classes were always having to raise money for something-and I would make a batch of pralines and take them back to school and sell them. And that would go to the whatever fund it was we were raising money for. It was a nice time. There was football, of course. And of course there wasn't a lot of money spent on girls' sports at that time, developing possible Olympians.

CP: Were there particular subjects that you gravitated to?

CW: Yes. I had always enjoyed writing. My grandfather had been the editor of the retirement home newsletter. And I was aware of that. But I also enjoy writing anyway. And I was editor of the high school paper my junior year. And then I edited the annual, my senior year. There was a particular woman who was the sponsor of both of those events, our endeavors. And her name was Katherine Cantz [phonetic]. She was working on her master's degree at the time I was a junior and senior. Lo and behold, when I was to become the editor of the annual, she had 00:10:00finished her degree and gotten a job teaching at the nearby college. So she wasn't there to be the sponsor anymore. In fact, I ended up kind of being the sponsor to those that worked on the annual. It was an interesting, maturing time. And I could have graduated in three years-I had all the hours and requirements to graduate. And I only stayed on to do the annual. And sometimes, I look back on it and wish that I might have gone ahead and followed her to that college which she went, and have been a leg up on getting out of college. A friend of mine did that. And she ended up being the principal of a school in Texas that they named after her. Those were good times.

Then we hit what we called a "Eisenhower depression" and building became slow, and the plans to go to the University of Texas when I graduate from high school, where I was an honor graduate and had been one of the ones chosen to make a speech at the graduation. And I chose as my topic self-reliance. I wish I had a copy of that today but most of my high school papers didn't follow me around the different places I've been.

CP: So there was this ambition for college but it was detoured?

CW: It was never a question that I was gonna go to college in my family. As I said, mother was a registered nurse. Daddy mostly had learned on the job, and I always kidded him that should go back and take his architectural degree when I went to college. He would play along with it but he did draw plans-he drew the plans for our home.

CP: Well, it looks like you did go to college briefly, at first, at Del Mar College.

CW: Yes, I got a job immediately after high school. And it was with business services. And I learned how to use all the machinery and stuff for multiple 00:13:00mailings, getting stuff ready, billings, the advertisement for grocery stores and things that had to be addressed. We had an address machine and I learned how to not only address things, but make the metal address, whatever, the little stamps, to address them with. And I got a raise after I've been there six weeks. And when I gave notice that I was going to go to college the second semester, the owner of the business was so disappointed because he said he was ready to give me another raise. And I said that that was good to know but that I was going on to college. And I did get jobs on the campus and Texas A&I. I got a job 00:14:00in the bookstore and I started working on the newspaper called the South Texan. And shortly, after my first few months there, I was named news editor which was also a paying job. So I had two paying jobs and they weren't very much in the 50s. But they gave me spending money. And being in the bookstore, I was able to read a lot of the books just off the shelf when I wasn't working.

CP: The newspaper job, I gather, was also important for a person that you met.

CW: Yes, it was, and my politics background too. In the summer of 1956, Bill Wilkins had been a delegate to the Texas convention, which was a raucous 00:15:00convention. And he was on campus. He had been in the military and he was back as a student working on a bachelor's degree in business. The newspaper knew that he had been a delegate and there weren't any other people on campus that they knew of that had been a delegate. And they wanted someone to go and interview him. No one really wanted to do it because they didn't think they had the background to do the interview. So they asked me to do it. And I got the job. I got a good interview. And he had never worked on the paper before or even thought about it. But he then did, the next term, in working on the paper. And he became an 00:16:00editor. And I became his news editor. And then after we became engaged, the summer before we were married, we changed jobs-I became editor of the paper and he became news editor.

CP: And you mentioned this is also your entry into politics?

CW: Together, yeah. Actually, he had run for student council representative in the spring of '56. And I ran a campaign for a fella who was running for president of the student body. My candidate lost and Bill did not win the seat. So the next year came around, we teamed up and had a candidate. And we did get 00:17:00him elected student body president. And then we got married, and left campus. And he sent us a telegram saying that-he came to the wedding of course, but then he sent us a telegram-we had chickened out on him, got him elected and then abandoned him. [Laughs] He was feeling some pressure, I guess. [Laughs.]

CP: So you got married and you moved to a job-well you moved to Texas Tech where Bill had a job.

CW: Yeah. It's in Lubbock. He got a job teaching economics in the Business School which was set up at Texas Tech. And that was an interesting experience, Texas Tech. The weather in Lubbock is quite different from on the coast of Texas. I don't know that there is any place in Oregon that I can compare it to 00:18:00because the sand blows through when the wind comes, and it snows. We stayed there just for that one term. And Bill decided that he needed-if he was going to stay in academia-a Ph.D. And I was a student, still, at Texas Tech. I had junior hours. So there I was, in my bobby socks and a faculty wife, going to classes and coming home, and changing into the high heels and going to whatever social thing it was that wives were supposed to be doing. And I made good friends with the Dean's wife in Business and she sort of relied on me because she could rely on me and I helped her do quite a lot of the social things for the women in 00:19:00business, the wives, families.

CP: Tell me more about the obligations that came with being a faculty wife at this time.

CW: As I say, I would go to class, and then we'd eat lunch and play pool. And those were what I did as a student. And then rush home and change and go to whatever it was-at that time, it was a tea with gloves and a hat. It wasn't an unusual thing for me to do. Girls wore gloves and hats at that time.

CP: So the stay at Texas Tech was short. And then you went on to UT-Austin.

CW: Yeah. Bill applied at several places. I remember Michigan State is one of them. And we had a discussion about that. We were aware of the weather change 00:20:00that we had gotten into in Lubbock and so we thought more about weather and our clothing. We thought that the difference in the amount of money that Bill was offered to go to Michigan and that to University of Texas was not enough to buy winter clothes for both of us-really get the snow boots and all that. Besides, there was some allegiance to the University of Texas. So I went ahead and finished when we got to Austin-I finished my degree at the University of Texas. And at that time, the University of Texas required that you take 24 semester hours on campus before they would award a degree. And I had senior hours already 00:21:00coming in from Lubbock-well I've been in Del Mar and Texas Tech, and I had senior hours. But I needed to complete 24 there on campus. So at that time, I decided to double up on my minor. And I went ahead in history and got a minor in history, and a minor in journalism, and then the English major degree. So I had really a three-way degree.

And while I was doing all that, Bill, well we both, helped a friend in Corpus Christi running for the legislature. And he was elected. And then I took the job 00:22:00of legislative assistant. At that time, the Texas legislature members did not have offices. They just had their desk on the House or Senate floor, and a chair beside it where their secretary or assistant sat. Some of them hired their wives and it was not called nepotism but, in any case, there was no office for the members of the legislature. And I did everything from answering all the mail, that came in the day it came in, even if it was a postcard that had-things would come in big lumps-if there had been a union meeting one evening, they'd hand it out postcards and had everybody write a postcard. And that still happens today. 00:23:00But all those had to be answered and the member I was working for wanted them answered the day they came in. So they were long hours for just answering the mail. And then I did the press releases, and welcoming the visitors that came to Austin to talk to the legislator, I'd set up committee meetings-some of them were in the evening which meant just staying on or going back to the capitol to work.

So it was a multitask job and I worked for three different members, two regular sessions, and innumerable special sessions. I was on the floor of the House in Texas the night that the sales tax was first passed in Texas and that had been 00:24:00several years' brutal fight. And there was a fight on the floor that night, not far from where I was sitting.

CP: How would you characterize your politics at this point?

CW: Well, not as involved as I was in-

CP: In terms of your point of view, your political point of view, of the candidates you were supporting.

CW: Oh. I'm kind of holding back on major decisions but I think there's a real need to elect a senator in Arizona. And I have sent supportive monetary donations to that campaign.

CP: I'm talking about the period of time that we were at in the interview in the 60s when you were in the legislature. You had been supporting candidates, you 00:25:00had been helping get candidates elected. I'm interested in knowing what your political bent was at that point of time.

CW: Well, at that time in Texas, there were not two political parties. There were conservatives and liberals within the Democratic Party. And Lyndon Johnson was elected vice chair. And there was a special election to fill his position and John Tower was elected. And John Tower was a Republican. And from that organization grew the Republican Party in Texas. People just finally decided to go their ways. We left Texas in 1961 so I cast my first ballot for president there. And, of course, Kennedy-Johnson ticket did carry Texas. And that was an 00:26:00interesting campaign because some people took bumper stickers that said "Kennedy-Johnson" and made it "Kennedy-Son-John". They were not for Lyndon, in other words. As to my political feeling on that sort of thing, I think that's sort of self-defeating. And there are people that are still that way today and that will hang in, on principle, they say. And principles never got a lot of 00:27:00things done, especially when they were adamant after something that was not gonna happen.

CP: Do I understand correctly that Bill ran for office while he was a Ph.D. candidate?

CW: Yeah. While he was a graduate student, we had bought a home in Austin and sold it for him to run for the House in 1960. And we were living with his mother in Corpus Christi. And he was running for a seat out of that district. He did not make the runoff-that was one of the things that happened before there were the two-party system. The primary was crowded and Bill did not make the runoff. 00:28:00I told him, at the time, that he had had his time to run for office and it would be my time next time. And my thought of that was I never would run, hence therefore, I keep him blocked. [Laughs]. But that did change and I did run for office here in Oregon. I ran for Secretary of State in 1976. And as Bill had done in Texas, I did not make the runoff.

CP: Well, let's talk about Oregon. So Bill finishes his Ph.D., you finished your Bachelor's degree in literature. And OSU emerges as an opportunity.

CW: Yeah. I typed on a manual typewriter, every university, college and 00:29:00university west of the Rockies, minus a few and plus a few just on the edge of the Rockies. We wrote to universities in Colorado, and, I think, New Mexico. But it was a batch of letters that I did and he got a very favorable report back from Oregon State University. And we'd been started looking more into it and pursuing that. And that's how we came to be in Oregon. I had never been west of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and I had done the navigation to get us from Austin, Texas, to Corvallis, Oregon. And I took us through Las Vegas, and out to San 00:30:00Francisco. Coming from flat south Texas, and looking at our map, which is pretty flat, a road map, Highway 101 up from California to Oregon didn't look like all those mountains. And we were pulling a tandem U-Haul. That was a very interesting trip.

We had all our belongings pulling behind us and we had our Siamese cat in the car with us. And Bill was carrying notices from the Air Force-he had stayed in the Air Force Reserve. And he was carrying a sealed envelope that were orders. 00:31:00That was the time of the Berlin-they were gonna build the wall in Berlin. I think all the military were on alert at that time, September of 1961. If the alert had gone out, Bill would have had to go do whatever it was they told him to do. And I'd be there with the cat and the car, and all our belongings in a tandem U-Haul. And fortunately, the call did not come.

And we entered Oregon at Grants Pass. It was late September. And I remember it was the afternoon and the buses were running. And there were women driving the buses. And I had never seen a woman drive a bus before. And that was interesting. And then the gladiolus were still blooming in people's gardens. And 00:32:00this was September and gladiolus were dead by June in Texas. So these were interesting things that started to happen. And I-5 was still being built through Douglas County. And we had to wait on things there for that to happen. And our map did not show that I-5 was completed between Eugene and the cutoff to Corvallis. So we went over to 99. So we entered Corvallis on 3rd St., where 99 comes in. And that was our approach. When we got into town, we called a future colleague and said we were here. And he came down and met us. He brought us on 00:33:00campus, through lower campus, and drove all the way through. And that was quite a beautiful introduction to Oregon State.

CP: So it was a favorable initial impression then?

CW: Yeah. And it was in a real true Indian summer. And I was saying how lovely the weather was. It would get warm in the day and it would be cool at night. And everyone kept saying, "well you just wait for the rain", "You just wait for the rain." And I didn't think the rain was ever gonna come. But then it did. But it was a different kind of rain than we were used to in the downpours in Texas. In fact, we wrote home and said that it was a light rain even when it was heavy.

CP: You had mentioned that you had written letters to all these western 00:34:00universities. That was the ambition then-was to live in the west?

CW: Well, we of course were in school with a number of graduate students. I was with some of them in English and Bill was with them in Economics. And they mostly, the group we went around with, were teaching associates and they were gonna go into teaching. We knew that women were not being accepted at the Southern schools for faculty. Unless it was a small women's college, they weren't being accepted anywhere. We had a couple friends who were accepted at Wyoming. She was accepted in English and he was in Economics. Of course, then we 00:35:00knew not to apply at Wyoming-I didn't waste time writing a letter there-because the odds of getting two people from the same area, even if they had different subject matter in economics, were not high. Besides, I didn't want to go to Wyoming. That would have been like getting snow boots and coats.

CP: So your hope, at this point, was to land a faculty position for yourself?

CW: Yeah. It was a known fact that I was gonna get at least two master's. Some people encouraged me to get a law degree instead of going with a master's. And that didn't appeal to me at all.

CP: And you did study a bit at OSU early on.

CW: I did. I took what they called leveling courses in history. I took them from Cairns Smith. And I really liked him. He was Canadian and he was thorough and entertaining. And I took some leveling history courses from him. And his wife was on the faculty in Home Ec. She was an artist as well. We were socially involved with them too. One of the wonderful things here at OSU, when we came in the 60s, was a group called Newcomers. And it was dedicated to the first two years of your being on campus. Everyone that came in with us were the newcomers 00:37:00that would take over and would organize the next year for the incoming group. We got involved in that. In fact, it was a practice for new people to get involved in that. We met people across campus, not just in economics or business. We met the agriculture people. Well, we met the dairy people because there was an active dairy bar here. They had milk, and cheese, and ice-cream. The New-comers group was very, very helpful for couples, families coming in because you immediately had people who kind of reached out to you and would answer your 00:38:00questions about where were the best place to go to do whatever it was. That came mostly tuned in when women began to be hired for teaching more. And sometimes it would be the wife that would be the one that got the job, and the guy who followed. And maybe he'd take a job doing something else if he wasn't into faculty teaching.

So that was an interesting change. And I was kind of in on that for the History Department because after I got my master's in Mexico-and we'll go back to a whole segment on Mexico-after I got my masters I was interviewed and hired in 00:39:00history. And as far as we can tell, I was the first woman to teach in the History Department in modern times. I always put the caveat on that, "in modern times", because we don't know what might have happened, as old as the university is, in the early years of who was teaching. But I had a contract to teach. And I also had a grant from the Western Water Resources Institute. And what happened was the History Department bought back some of my teaching time because I had a 00:40:00water resources thing and I ended up only teaching one course in the spring that year. But the time for hiring people had already passed and they needed to get someone to teach those other things. This is a time when the second boost of baby boomers were coming in. And another woman was hired. I cannot remember her name but she was hired on two thirds of my original contract. So we got women in the History Department real quick. And then that came to an end when Bill became Dean. There were no women in the History Department. And he knew that there were 00:41:00women with Ph.D.'s in the fields that they needed that were vacant. And he told them to look. And they found. Hence there was no question about it anymore.

CP: Well, you mentioned Mexico. So you were at OSU for a period of time-

CW: Two years. And I talked about Newcomers earlier. I was president of Newcomers our second year. So after we finished our second year here and I finished the Newcomers presidency, we had a contact from Mexico. A friend, who was in business school at University of Texas, was head of the Business School 00:42:00at the University of the Americas in Mexico City. And he contacted Bill because he needed an economist for the following year. And we put together a quid pro quo. They could not offer enough money to hire Bill down there. But they would give a full scholarship to take a master's degree. So we accepted and we went. And I was under the pressure to finish the entire master's degree in one year's time because that's what we were gonna be there-we were there from September to September.

And I told my family that they were not to come to visit, that I was not going 00:43:00to have time to do that and do all my coursework that I needed to do. And Bill did not tell his family. And they did stay away until the summer that we were coming home, or, I was finishing up things. And then his mother and niece came. And his niece stayed and took some classes that summer. And then her family came to pick her up and visit. So actually, we had a very, very good year but it was a hectic year. Looking back on it, I just wonder how we did everything we did because we did travel a lot. And I'm glad that we got it done at that time in Mexico. We went to the Yucatán for the Easter holiday break. And we went to Day 00:44:00of the Dead on Pátzcuaro Island. It was a very good time. And I had an excellent international team of teachers. In fact, I helped a woman, Señora Doctora, and I can't remember her last name right now. She had fled Spain from Franco. And she was teaching history and historiography. And I helped her some.

Then there was a professor who came out-well, he was a member of what is called Exteriores, which is the State Department in Mexico. And he was a member of the State Department. And he came out and was teaching one of the international 00:45:00courses that I took. And I really liked him. And his lectures and all that he shared led me to the United States-Mexico treaty of 1944 with the water-well, it was the water transfer treaty, where water out of Colorado was funneled down into Baja, California, and then Mexico gave up water in South Texas. It's very interesting and I pursued that with some success, both in getting published articles and attention. In the late 60s, there was a great deal of talk about 00:46:00water diversion from the Columbia River down to the Southwest where it was needed. And Senator "Scoop" Jackson and Senator Magnuson, staffed up in Washington, got some of these reports. And a moratorium was set. I think Scoop took the legislation through, 20-year moratorium on talks on any transfer of water out of the Columbia. Some of the stuff that I had shared in my writings were used by them for their drafting.

CP: Did you speak Spanish?

CW: I did when I was down there. I had to. I was carrying on a household. I was running a household, again, a faculty wife and a student, and shopping. And it was necessary to have a maid. I was not gonna have a maid and the woman we were renting from said "Well, you need it just to get your wash done." Because there weren't very many washaterias in Mexico City at that time and everyone had a maid. So we searched around and found a maid.

CP: And this was a skill you already had, or you picked it up while you were there, Spanish?

CW: It had been my language to get out of school at the University of Texas. Spanish was another thing that I took besides history and the other leveling classes that I took. And I took some short hand too to use in my job at the 00:48:00capitol. But living in Mexico on a day-to-day basis, you pick it up more. And we went back in 1969 and took some classes, both Bill and I, in Spanish. Mexico has a different accent than Columbia or other places in South America. And the accent of the Spanish speaking at that time in Texas, so the 60s, is different from now. And we're living there now and people don't have any accent at all. But of course, they have been like third and fourth generation of US Texas 00:49:00citizens. And they talk with the Texas drawl.

CP: Well you finished the master's degree in Mexico, came back to Corvallis. And there was a couple topics I want to tease out a little bit from the next few years. And the first is your initial involvement, it sounds like, with the Benton County Democratic Party. How did that come about?

CW: We had not gotten involved before we left for Mexico, other than supporting candidates and voting. And we came back in the fall of 1964. And the election time was going hot and heavy. The vice chair of the Democratic Party here in Benton County contacted me, said that she needed a precinct committee woman, in 00:50:00the precinct that we had moved into. And I think she had just been waiting for us to get there and get settled. So I became a precinct committee woman. And then that put me on the central committee. And they soon knew that I had a degree, a background in journalism, so they appointed me press secretary for the election. And that was the basis of being involved.

CP: What was the political climate like in Benton County at that time?

CW: Well, they were fighting each other. [Laughs] There was what I would call a Southern Democratic view on one side, and more progressive on the other. And 00:51:00before we had arrived, they had had a knock down drag out for election of the officers of the central committee. And the progressives had won. And there was still wounded pride from having lost, in some cases, and some bitterness. And that had to be overcome. The only thing I needed to do was get everybody to do what they did best, and tell them to quit fighting. And so I got elected vice chair the next time the elections came along and Larry Callahan was chair.

One of the things that I did-because I felt that if we were going to be 00:52:00involved, we had to really know what the Oregon laws and everything were, and so-I spent a lot of time reading about the state statues that had party affiliation written into them. And they were pretty thorough. And one of the things was that there needed to be people that could take care of voter registration in proportion to the number of citizens in the voting area. And that was not happening in Benton County. The county clerk had them come into the courthouse, and at special times before an election, he would pay the legal 00:53:00women voters ten cents a name, I think it was, for taking in registration. And that was the norm. And I checked with clerks throughout the first congressional district which was Benton County up to Astoria, and from the Willamette to the ocean, those counties, and practically this first congressional district, it was then and now those counties. And they had many more people doing voter registration. So I took it to the central committee and pointed out that our 00:54:00clerk was not following the law. And we had the lawyer for the central committee took the county clerk to court and won. And we got lots of people registering and it just opened up Benton County.

CP: Interesting.

CW: Because once they got registered, we could do the get out to vote.

CP: My sense is that it was a more conservative place back then, in terms of the electorate. Is that correct?

CW: Well, the place was growing too, growing with people coming in from other areas.

CP: So it's starting to shift at that point?

CW: Um-hum.

CP: Let's back up a little bit and talk a little bit more about your period as an instructor at OSU. You mentioned you were the first woman, in modern times at least, teaching in history. Tell me about that experience and your memories of 00:55:00the part.

CW: Well, one of the things is my office didn't have a window. But I did have an office. And I was young so they would put me out all over the place. Is the History Department still in the home ec building?

CP: Yeah, Milam Hall.

CW: Yeah, Milam Hall. I was on the third floor in a dark room. I enjoyed it. I had huge classes. I taught over in the building that's across from Withycombe-I think it's a forestry building or something, over across, off of 35th.

CP: Yeah, maybe so.

CW: Ninety or a hundred in the class and I taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They were hour and a half classes. In the spring, I would lose my voice because 00:56:00I have allergies to lots of stuff around here. And I learned that that was going to happen, so I would line up-also in the spring, you were fighting time to get past World War II, to get them on into modern times where they were-I would line up film to back me up in case I did lose my voice, because there was no backup in the faculty. They were all busy too. It was a fun time. One of the things that I remember is a guy that was in my class at that time-do you know Jan Roberts-Dominguez?

CP: Um-hum.

CW: Steve Dominguez was in my class. I remember him. I don't know that he 00:57:00remembers me as being his history teacher but anyway.

CP: Who are some of the major figures in the department at the time, or people who made an impact on you?

CW: In the department?

CP: Yeah, in History.

CW: Well, the guy that hired me was George Carson. He was chair of the department. There was a fellow that they hired at the same time as I was hired, that turned out to be a fraud, his name was Kennedy. [Laughs] He exaggerated his academic role.

CP: His credentials?

CW: I think he said he was all but dissertation from somewhere, and it turned out he didn't even have a master's. And he was on the committee-I was named to the textbook-choosing committee, and he was on there too. I remember that. And I 00:58:00had trouble with the fact that all the books were written for semester and we were on the quarter system. And it meant that some of those kids-and these books were not cheap then-were caught with having to buy those books. And then they changed them-they'd have to buy the other book. It was a dilemma that I couldn't solve in the little time that I was there. But I enjoyed it and I didn't have any major complaints. And I did participate in the department meetings and so forth, and spoke my voice if I needed to.

CP: Was Bill Williams there at this point? William Appleman Williams.

CW: Yeah. But he lived around the coast so he never was really-I don't even know where his office was. But yeah, he was around. I remember him-I went to a fundraiser when I was Benton County chair, or may have been vice chair of the state party then. Anyway, I was the speaker over in Newport, and he and his wife came. And it was before the primary vote. And Straub, and a guy from down in 01:00:00Lane County were vying for the Governor's nomination. And I mixed up one half of the name with the other-I can't do it now because I can't remember the other guy's name. But I said half of Straub and half of the other guy's name. And William Appleman Williams was there and he told me afterwards that that would be the winning candidate. [Laughs]

CP: Well, let's shift back to politics. So you mentioned your elevation to vice chair of, I believe, the county party first, but then the congressional district. Is that right? But there seems to be an overlap as well.

CW: It will get confusing because I did them in steps. What would happen would 01:01:00be-let's take the congressional one-I got elected, at the regular election time, Vice Chair of the First Congressional District. And the guy that was elected chair then resigned half way through. And Senator Ed Fadeley was chair of the party. And he just elevated me to chair, which was his prerogative to do. And then in the next election, we were gonna elect the vice chair to fill it. What happened in the meantime when we got to the next election-and I did serve as chair, and I was Chair of the First Congressional District when Robert Kennedy 01:02:00came to Oregon and the Benton County courthouse steps. I had made it a rule of mine that I would not, as a party leader, endorse in the primary. So I was not involved in that way. But Bill was chair of the Bobby Kennedy campaign here. He had five counties. They won two, lost two and tied one. I think it's the story. But it went up as far as Yamhill and I think Yamhill was the tie.

CP: Tell me more about that visit. Well, there's actually two visits, wasn't there, that Robert Kennedy made to this area?

CW: Yeah. He came in early in the campaign to Gill Coliseum. And Bill did all 01:03:00the footwork from getting that done, making the coliseum look full if it didn't have enough people in it. One of the things they could do was pull down the stair-like seats from the sides-it's completely different over there now. They could unlock and bring those down. Then you would lose the clump of people out in front of the cameras. They'd go sit on the sides. Well, Bill saw to it that those were locked in and guarded, and put most of the people in front of the camera.

One of the things, I don't know if you've noticed but there's a train that goes 01:04:00through here on a near regular basis. And getting that schedule of the near-regular train and being sure that it wasn't gonna come through and block Kennedy in his car on the way to the tour back from that area was an important thing. And I remember the press was eager to be in a place where they could get a good shot if they were a camera crew. Anyway, it may seem glamorous to people 01:05:00who are watching the thing come together. But for those that are putting it together, it is tedious work. And the juggling with the head offices of the campaign and the local offices of the campaign, which would have been in Portland, and all the people in charge of doors and chairs and stuff, is a big headache. But that was successful. The first one through was a successful time.

The next time was just days before the election here. And Bill did not want Kennedy to come through. We had all the people on the phones and they were doing the basic work of getting out the vote. And this pulled everybody off the job to be down at the courthouse. And of course, he was late. He was always late. Then there had almost been a crash-I think it was at Roseburg Airport. They had to get special permission to bring his plane into Corvallis because it wasn't long enough for that plane. It was just a lot of stuff. And Bill did not want him coming in. The big campaign, it was being run in New York. And they said he was 01:07:00coming. And he did come, eventually. And we have pictures of Bill holding Brian, our son who was three at the time, and I, standing on the courthouse steps right behind Kennedy. And we sent that picture to Bill's mother, which arrived after the assassination. And she got on the phone, and getting on the phone was not a big thing with Bill's mother's age group in 1968. And she said to us: "If you want to go and be involved that closely with politicians, that's ok. But you don't take my grandson." Of course we did, brought him everywhere with us.

CP: Did you go to Chicago that summer?

CW: No. Neither one of us ran for delegate. We were rather new at politics as 01:08:00you could see there from our time being in Mexico and all. We sent Bowles a Scotch-that was somebody-so they could have a good evening. But we didn't run for delegate and so we weren't there for all of that.

CP: It's striking how quickly things happened for you. I mean, you just started at '64, and by '68 you're in charge of the state. And you also had a kid in the middle of that.

CW: Yeah.

CP: Lots happening in your life at this period of time.

CW: We had Brian in October of '65 and he just went with us everywhere. In fact, 01:09:00we have one full quote from him. You're familiar with the little lake over in Albany where the ducks are?

CP: Um-hm. Waverly Lake, I think?

CW: [Cross talking] What's the name of the lake?

CP: Waverly, I think.

CW: Yeah, yeah. Democrats spend their summer in picnics. The counties all round will have a county picnic. And we went to those when I was state chair. And Brian always had fun. People would bring their kids, of course. And they would get to play with him. And there would usually be a donkey and he'd get his picture day on the donkey. We just took a family basket of chicken and went over to Waverly Lake, just the three of us, about this time one year. And we got there, and unloaded it and walked over to the lake. Brian looked around and he 01:10:00said: "Where are all the Democrats?" So he expected that if it was a picnic, there were supposed to have Democrats. [Laughs]

But back on the Congressional Vice Chair to chair, that was a quick progression. The Congressional First District Chair resigned and, I told you, Fadeley appointed me to be that. And then when we got to the 1968 elections, he did primary here for Senate and Jim Redden was not a very enthusiastic candidate for 01:11:00chair of the party. And the Senator Morse side of the party had gone out and found a candidate from Washington County to run for chair. And he got elected, just barely. And then it came time to elect a vice chair. And then the woman who was vice chair with Ed Fadeley, Senator Fadeley, was nominated. And she stood up 01:12:00and said that she would not accept the nomination. And the meeting just got unruly. And the chair who had just been elected didn't know what to do. And Ed Fadeley went back and took over the gavel and put them into recess.

And people came to me, and said, "Caroline, wouldn't you run for vice chair?" And I said, "But I'm going to run for the seat I'm holding, Chair of the Congressional District." They said, "No, we need you more here." And I said 01:13:00"Well, I have to go get released from my delegates, my representatives." So I got them into a meeting. Well, they didn't want me to leave. They wanted me to stay and be Chair of the First Congressional District. And then one of the people said "Caroline, we're going to need someone who knows about the party because this guy doesn't-he's just come in off the streets", they said. And so we got everybody to release me, and let me run for vice chair of the party. And we got a candidate, too, from Lincoln County to run for first vice. And settled all that and came back into the meeting. And I was elected.

Well, we went to Mexico then, in January of '69. And from January of '69 to 01:14:00August of '69, the people in charge of the party bankrupted. They ran up bills like crazy and didn't pay any of them. They rented an office in downtown Portland, a suite of offices, and had them furnished, and had them all equipped and no money coming in. And they were not paying their bills. The thing that really brought it to a head was a fundraiser down in Eugene with the head of the DNC who was Senator Harris from Oklahoma at the time. They were at the Eugene 01:15:00hotel and they did not pay their bill. And Eugene Democrats got very upset because the people in Eugene came to them to pay up. Well, there was no money to pay with-that had all been spent. So when I got to my first meeting of the executive committee after we returned from Mexico, people said, "this guy has got to go. Caroline, are you ready to be chair of the party?" And I said, "Well, I guess I am."

CP: So you inherited it in a not great situation.

CW: We were quite a lot in debt. They had signed a lease for the property-775 01:16:00dollars a month for the suite, which may not sound very much in today's time. But in 1969-70, it was. And they had signed a long-term lease with Norris, Beggs & Simpson. And I had to negotiate some of them myself. But it was great that many of the lawyers in the Democratic Party came forward and said "just give us an assignment of what things that need to be settled. Then we will team up and settle them." And they did. And Ed Fadeley, Senator Fadeley, and Harl Haas, Don 01:17:00Willner, just a number of steady democratic attorneys, came in and asked what they needed to do, and they did it. They took their specialty, so to say. And then we went to fundraising, and we were successful.

I did something that had not been before and was adopted by other states. When the candidates for president started coming into Oregon for the primary in 1972, I got them to sign pledges that they would do a fundraiser for the Democratic 01:18:00Party before they start fundraising for themselves. Well, they're already raising money for themselves. But they did do that. They did come in and they did do fundraisers. And that helped us get out of it. And then really the one that boosted us further on-Mrs. Green helped us get Ted Kennedy out here for a brunch. Well we knew that he wasn't gonna make it at a brunch time so we just called it a continental. And it was at the Hilton in Portland. And there was a very successful fundraiser there. And we continued to be successful. And I ran 01:19:00again in '70 in Bend and was reelected. And then in '72, the convention was in Clackamas County and I was reelected. And I didn't need to go any further.

But in the meantime, I had been elected vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. [Laughs] What had happened in 1970-the state chairs of the Democratic Party had gotten together and said it was necessary that they'd be part of the DNC. The Republican state chairs had been part of the Republican National Committee since Eisenhower. And the chairs of the parties were saying, "We are 01:20:00where all the work is done. Those others are just honorary seats. And they're supposed to be fundraising but not all of them are. And we're where the get-out-the-vote and all the mechanics of the party in the States is done."

So Larry O'Brien, of course, understood that because he had been John Kennedy's campaign manager and was now chair of the DNC. And he was favorable to that presentation. And so we were getting an amendment ready to take to get the state chairs on the DNC. And the state vice chairs, a) found out there was a woman 01:21:00chair and that she was going to those meetings with all the male chairs. And they said "you just got to do something about getting the vice chairs. They can't just take the chairs because we really are the ones that do the work." And of course, I knew it was true because I had seen it. So I went to a meeting of the state chairs association and talked with the chairs that I knew from the western states. And we had wording in the state statues that I had studied for so many years, I told you about the Oregon state statues, had it provided that the vice chair of the county party, the congressional party, and the state party, would be of the opposite sex.

So I took that wording and I went to the western chairs. And they were always a little more open-minded, I thought, than Connecticut and New York, and Ohio. So I took that wording and I got it approved. But I knew that I didn't want to move it because there is no lonelier place than having made a motion that dies of a second. So I got Colorado chair to made the motion to carry the wording that I gave them. And I seconded it. And it passed. And so the state chairs took that to the floor of the convention in 1972 in Miami. And it's still being done that 01:23:00way. Norma Paulus took that wording out of the state statues in Oregon so you won't find it there. But it was there and it helped open the parties in the United States to women leadership. In fact, within months after I became vice chair of the DNC, in December of 1972, about early '73, Maine, Florida, and Alaska all had women chairs-that quickly. So they just needed an example.

CP: Was this your first national convention, '72?

CW: Yeah. But I wasn't a delegate. I was on the arrangements committee however.

CP: What was your memory of that experience?

[pause]

CW: Well, Jackson wanting the daily seat on the floor-excuse me. Women who had not been active in the party had gotten themselves elected delegates from various states. Young people were there in greater number. Minorities were there 01:25:00in greater number. But Jesse Jackson, of course, was doing his grand standing out front. He was quite young then himself. Anyway, the leadership had learned a lot from the Chicago convention. And a lot of demands had been put on making the arrangements for the '72 convention. And it was very expensive. One of the demands was that every delegate have his own phone. Now, this is before 01:26:00cellphones, they wanted installed phones for all the delegates. And there were to be more delegates than usual, larger number. Well, it would have been prohibitive to have paid for the installation of a phone for every seat. So they went back to just a phone for the chair of the delegation.

The Democrats were meeting in the same hall that the Republicans were meeting. And the Democrats tried to negotiate with the Republicans. And this was at the suggestion of the bell system itself that the wiring and so forth be joint 01:27:00installed or paid for. Well, no, the Republicans weren't gonna have any part of that. Actually, I guess the way bugging lines has been done in more recent years. It's probably a good thing that they didn't. But a great many demands were made, coming out of the 1968 convention, that were just prohibitive either technology or pricing-maybe the technology was there but the pricing was gonna run us crazy. We did get through that, though. And there weren't any major upsets. I got a little upset-we were taking a cab, which weren't very easy to 01:28:00come by, a group of us Democratic women between hotels. And people just kept piling in and I got left with Bill. [laughs]

CP: This is a period of time that is dominated by Vietnam. It's late 60s - early 70s. What is your memory of what the environment was like in Corvallis during that time period?

CW: Well, we had things happen. Some students tried to burn down McAlexander Fieldhouse. Of course it's got a mud floor. They had a non-military ball. I 01:29:00think that things that happened at Oregon State were protests but I think they were-except for trying to burn down the building-not blood-letting. I had something happen at the Bend convention in August of 1972. A student came in with a North Vietnamese flag through the convention. And he had been outside and 01:30:00people knew he had the flag. I don't know what was said or done but he did come through the convention hall, waving the flag. Then Senator Ed Fadeley put a citizen's arrest on him. We thought that he was a student at U of O and then came to find out he was one of ours. He was from here at OSU. And I don't know what became of that but we jumped to the conclusion that he was from down in Eugene and then I think Fadeley did too because he's from Eugene. So he put the citizen's arrest on him.

CP: So moving forward to the 1976 convention. I know this was consequential for you. You played a role.

CW: Yes I was in the arrangements committee again. One of the interesting things 01:31:00that happened there, the hotel that was chosen, headquarters hotel, still had operators operating the switchboards. And the hotel had been purchased by the Hiltons not long before that. Chairman Strauss got on the phone to Barron Hilton and told him if he didn't get modern phones in every room and get some action there, he was gonna take the headquarters hotel to somewhere else. And we got the phones. Those were kind of things on arrangements, our little stories that 01:32:00happened. First of all, the phone number at the hotel was 765000 from the Glenn Miller "765000 Pennsylvania". That was the phone number of that hotel and that they still had, in 1976, operators running the switch boards.

I introduced Tip O'Neill to that convention. I don't particularly remember what I said but I did go up to meet him and tell him that I was going to be introducing him. And he didn't really know how to make conversation, I guess. He 01:33:00should have been warned I was coming. But anyway, he said "What color outfit are you gonna wear?" And I said, "I'm going to be wearing a peach colored suit. What color are you gonna wear?" [Laughs] He said, "Probably a blue suit. It shows up best on TV." People think there are great conversations going on at these times, have plans and all. But that was about the extent-I was paying my courtesy call to him that I was going to be introducing him, gave him a copy of what was going 01:34:00to be on the reader. And that was it.

The other thing I remember about that convention was the entry to the desk-was very, very tight, very small. You went up in an elevator to get to that level, and then out. And then I had been behind House member [inaudible] and her dress was not zipped up all the way. And I caught it cuz I was behind her going opposite in the elevator, and caught it and zip her up. And she said "thank 01:35:00you". [Laughs]

CP: Was this the convention where the National Federation of Democratic Women was recognized?

CW: '72.

CP: '72? Ok.

CW: Down in Florida. They were some of the women that were in the car with me when it got so loaded up. And what loaded it up was Bella Abzug. She came, elbowing her big self into that cab and sat there, and didn't even offer to pay any part of her way. Anyway-[Laughs]

CP: Well, this was a big deal though, right? I mean, the fact that this organization was officially recognized.

CW: Yeah, that happened. And also, the state chairs and vice chairs were recognized. That's all in that 1972 convention in Florida-that came out. Other 01:36:00things may not have come out so well as those things did.

CP: Right. Well, it seems like '76 is kind of the crescendo for you. Am I correct about that? After that, you work for the state of Oregon the next year.

CW: Yeah, I did that. I told-he was Governor Carter at the time, but then he was President-elect-that I did not want to continue as vice chair. One of the things I had always said was if you do a good job and you're proud of what you did, don't just keep doing it-go do something else. That pretty much followed that. 01:37:00And there's always something else to do. And back here, I was supported by Governor Straub to the Consumer Services Division. And that was a lot to do. The more I did, the more they gave me because they were closing out small offices that had consumer interest. They would just give them over to my office. And that was still happening in 1981 when I started my own business. Senator Atiyeh, 01:38:00then Governor Atiyeh, had kept me on in that office because I was doing a good job. And he and I had gotten along. Even when he was head of the Republicans in the Senate, I always paid him my respects when it was necessary and got along with him ok. So he had no real reason to move me out of that office.

But what was happening was they were cutting back so much in the budgeting that there was not an inch of room to spare when we got these new jobs to do-the 01:39:00closing office and send the complaints over to you. There was no room to hire a person to handle any of that. And it got overwhelming. And I didn't see that it was going to stop. So I decided I can do most of these as a private contractor myself. So that's when I gave my notice. Then they did away with the office. They didn't do away with it completely-they moved it to the Attorney General's office. But as far as I know, they didn't have a lawyer running it either. And of course, I was not an attorney. And I did get into discussions with the Attorney General's office when I had to go reference to one of them on 01:40:00something. They keep time by whoever it was they were talking to as the hour came to a close-or as the hour opens, whichever-and I was keeping very close track of the timing that I talked with the attorneys. And then I get the huge bills. You know, that's not true, I didn't talk that much with them. And that's how I found out how they were keeping time to charge the various state agencies.

CP: Tell me about your years as a consultant.

CW: Well, I started out when we were in Virginia and made contact with MITRE, 01:41:00the researching and engineering spin-off that MIT had. I was going to Australia in 1984 for a Zonta convention. And MITRE have needed, or wanted, some information about aviation in Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. And they wanted to know what status that the local aviation groups were and what kind of 01:42:00equipment they had, and what they might need, and that sort of thing-what their wish list was for technology development things. So I wrote up a grant and they said that was what they wanted. And then, they wanted to put an addendum on it just as I was getting ready to leave. They wanted to add New Guinea. You know, right away I can tell these engineers don't know their geography and the unrest. [Laughs] I told them there was no way that Wilkin's Associates was gonna cover New Guinea in this trip. So anyway, we did that. And that was 01:43:00the start of it.

And then while we were down there-Bill and I went, and he actually did the interview in Fiji-we went on our own over to Canberra, the capital, and made some arrangements to interview people there. But the interesting thing that came up was, it was a great deal of talk about rapid train between Sydney and Canberra. And I took as an added paragraph on my report when I came back about these three different locations. I told them that there was some talk about rapid transit between Sydney and Canberra. Well, they wanted more information on 01:44:00that. And so I wrote something on that for them too. Then PCBs came in '79. PCBs were outlawed and everybody that handled things in the water where PCBs could be-PCBs sink to the depth so they're probably down in the very bottom of the ocean-there was a great deal of talk about them causing cancer and all sorts of things. And they had the attention of the public.

So Bonneville Power contacted me. They wanted some lectures for their employees on PCBs and what to expect. And I became the conduit on that. I got in touch with some engineers who did want to bet on it. But I had the contact and I handled the contract. So those were interesting things. Some of the things that I served on while I was in the Consumer Services Division included the consumer product safety commission, a lot of stuff there. And the other thing was I was named to the US Salmon, that long title-you've had the full name, I bet.

CP: Pacific Fishery Management Council Salmon Advisory subpanel.

CW: Pacific Fishery Management Council Salmon subpanel, yeah. That's set the salmon fishing dates between Canada line and California/Mexico. And it was done every year. I was a consumer person chosen on that. So that was fun. They had representatives from the tribes and from the commercial fishery, and the sports fisheries. They were just very large. There again, I was the only woman on a 01:47:00bigger table than this, representing all those different entities. And they would bring their wives with them. But I didn't take my husband.

CP: Speaking of, he became a Dean around this time.

CW: '82.

CP: And there are obligations, I'm sure, being a Dean's wife.

CW: Yeah. And there were some changes there too, while we were there. He was there 12 years. And one of the things early on was doing the social thing. We were not wearing hats and gloves but we were doing the social thing. We had people at the house and entertained. And then the word went out that we really should be doing them with catered people in open places. The warning was the 01:48:00fear of food poisoning or something like that happening in a private place but a public gathering. So that's when all the catering businesses bloomed in the area. The responsibilities there actually, as a Dean's wife, we did meet as Dean's wives. But that was more for our own social development and keeping in touch with each other, and being a part of the backbone of the university. I don't know how much that had changed by the time in the 90s when we got out of 01:49:00it. But certainly, the organization of it has changed. You don't have chairs reporting to the Dean and the Dean reporting to the Provost.

CP: Ok, Caroline, we've got just a few minutes left, but I wanted to ask you a couple things. The first is people. You were connected to so many people in Oregon politics and national politics. You got to meet some major figures. I'm interested in any individuals that made an impact on you or stories you'd want to share from those encounters?

CW: Well, of course, here in Benton County, Cliff [Clifford] Trow is very important because he was in the Senate for a number of years and accomplished 01:50:00many things for the state. And the local people really respect him from what he'd done. And I had the opportunity to be on the faculty with him in the early 60s before he went to the Senate and when I was teaching in the History Department. Tony Van Vliet followed Robert Ingalls into the House Chair. And Tony, of course, is a Republican. But he is a very astute person and follows things and keeps abreast of things. And I admire him and supported him in the time that he was there.

And actually, his predecessor, Bob Ingalls who was the editor of the local paper, the Gazette Times, was a neighbor of ours on Roosevelt Street. And when he was building the house on Roosevelt St.-and we were already there, we were one of the first houses on Roosevelt St. in that section-he asked me, he said, "Caroline, you do know who our street was named after, don't you?" And I said, "Oh yes, Bob. Eleanor." [Laughs] So he and I had a very friendly, neighborly friendship. And he was an astute person too and very good for Oregon State University, and the city.

Others, I mentioned Victor Atiyeh earlier. He was the Republican leader and he was from Washington county. He was low-key but he got things done. One of the 01:52:00things I think we have lost in political contact these days is a civility that we used to have, that you could be civil with people that you disagree wholeheartedly with on policy matters. As it happened that a great many policy matters that came up were about education or the economy. And more times than not, I could see that we agree. It didn't matter that one side was Democratic and the other side was Republican.

Of course, there was Edith Green who was so important, not only to education but to the running of Congress and to getting a lot of things done at the time when she was there. There weren't too many women in Congress at the time, but she was effective. And she had-when I was installed as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee-put together a luncheon for me on the Hill with all the women Congressional members to come to it. And that was a very nice thing for her to do for me. And it certainly introduced me to some of the women, members of Congress that I might not have gotten to know otherwise.

CP: Can I ask you about-is it-Rilla Moran Woods? And C. Delores Tucker?

CW: C. Delores Tucker-C. Delores was the appointed Secretary of State of Pennsylvania. And she was also on the DNC. And Rilla Moran Woods, in the early 70s, went to Democratic Women's Day symposium in Washington D.C. And when she saw all the women from around the States that were there, she said that we really needed to organize and get a conversation going between states, between conventions. And it was her idea to form a federation. And she did that, and got it off the ground while I was Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. 01:55:00And so one of the things we were doing in tandem, although I don't think everybody knew it, was C. Delores and I were working for the acceptance of Democratic Vice Chairs and the chairs on the DNC. And we were also working for acceptance and recognition of the Federation of Democratic Women. So we were double jobbing there all the time.

CP: I understand you have a connection to lighthouses?

CW: Well, I am a big fan-I like lighthouses, I like the mystique. And I understand the importance of them to early maritime history. I'm a charter 01:56:00member of the US Lighthouse Society, and then also of the Oregon Lighthouse Society which has been subsumed by the US Lighthouse Society now. With the group, I started and I'm a charter member of the Oregon Lighthouse Society. And the basic thing that we were doing was protecting the lighthouses we have along the coast. They're a wonderful tourist attraction. And as I say, they have a romanticism to the sea and to anything else that you want to put with it. It's the history of lighthouses-it's interesting. And I have visited lighthouses all 01:57:00over the world. We have taken tours of lighthouses in Greece. And anytime we go places, we outline where there will be lighthouses and try to put them in our tour.

CP: The last thing I want to ask you about-we're running up against our time here but-this library is 20 years old, the Valley Library, and I understand that you were part of the campaign to create the Valley Library out of the Kerr Library, can you tell me about that?

CW: Yes. And I'm going to look at the display downstairs as I go out. I was chair of the Friends of the Library 20 years ago when it was first talked about, 01:58:00expanding the library here. And I was, because of that position and interest in libraries-because I was already on the library foundation of the Corvallis-Benton County Library-I was invited to be on the fundraising for the new library addition. And it was to be a million dollars at the time. And at that time also, prices were increasing exponentially. Last I heard was we actually got to 10 million to accomplish the finishing touches here. And talking of finishing touches, we came in on a walkway that I think was one of the after 01:59:00touches. It didn't have to do with going up in the library-it was the apron out front, was added on. And that's all very nice. And I'm so pleased that we have it here.

CP: Me too. I'm pleased to have you here today and to capture a piece of your story. And thank you for your time and your generosity in sharing it.

CW: Thank you.