Mabel Altona Wood was born in 1896 in Palmer, Oregon. Later in her childhood, she lived in Troutdale, Oregon. After briefly teaching at Cedar School in Troutdale, she studied at Oregon Agricultural College (later Oregon State University), and then at Columbia University in New York. In 1932, she became head of the home economics department at the University of Oregon as assistant professor. She became a full professor in 1939, the first woman at the university to do so. Wood retired in 1966, and died in 1978. She requested that her remains be cremated, but did not plan for the disposition of her ashes. In September 1993, her ashes were interred in her family plot at the Douglass Cemetery in Troutdale.

Sources: Articles in the Oregonian: "Students Average High," July 13, 1924, Page 4; "Laboratory Planned for Homemaking," January 23, 1939, page 4; "4 Professors Plan Retirement," June 25, 1964, page 22; "Memorial set for pioneering UO professor," September 2, 1993, MetroEast, Neighbors section, page 2; article in the Oregon Daily Emerald (Eugene), May 31, 1946, page 6; vital records on Ancestry.com.

Homer J. E. Townsend was born in 1917 in Bakersfield, California. He served in the Navy during World War II, and studied at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He worked as a Presbyterian missionary and administrator in the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska. He also wrote histories, including biographical works about Mabel A. Wood. In the course of his research on Wood, Townsend discovered that, because she had not planned for the disposition of her ashes, they had remained unclaimed in a funeral home following her death. In 1993, he arranged for Wood's ashes to be buried in the family plot at Douglass Cemetery in Troutdale, Oregon.

Townsend married Alice Rice (1918-2005) in 1980. He died in 2008 in Gresham, Oregon.

Sources: "Memorial set for pioneering UO professor," September 2, 1993, MetroEast, Neighbors section, page 2; obituary in the Oregonian, March 14, 2008, page c08; vital records on Ancestry.com