Homer J. E. Townsend collection on Mabel A. Wood

Collection

Identifier: Coll 948

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of correspondence, records, ephemera, and photographs relating to University of Oregon home economics professor Mabel A. Wood, created or gathered by Homer J. E. Townsend. The bulk of materials concern the burial of Wood's ashes in Troutdale, Oregon, which Townsend arranged for; other documents consist of notes and writings by Townsend about Wood's life. The collection also includes newsletters that include information about the interment of Wood's ashes; and a Troutdale Historical Society newsletter mentioning Townsend's work on a history of Troutdale's Cedar School, where Wood briefly taught.

The bulk of the photographs in the collection are of the interment of Wood's ashes. Other photographs are of Wood's parents, Isaac Wood and Minnie Wood, on their wedding day; of Wood with her parents and her sister in 1920; and of Wood circa 1940.

Dates

1887-1993
Majority of material found in 1993

Creator

Townsend, Homer (Compiler, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.

Biographical Note

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, 1924-1993; article in the Oregon Daily Emerald (Eugene), May 31, 1946; vital records on Ancestry.com.

Biographical Note

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: Articles in the Oregonian, September 2, 1993, and March 14, 2008; vital records on Ancestry.com

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (2 folders in shared box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Materials relating to Homer J. E. Townsend's research on Mabel A. Wood (1896-1978) and the interment of her ashes, including correspondence, notes, newsletters, ephemera, and photographs. Wood taught home economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene and was the first woman to become a full professor at that university. Townsend (1917-2008) was a Presbyterian missionary and administrator who wrote biographical works about Wood, and who arranged for the interment of Wood's ashes in her family plot at the Douglass Cemetery in Troutdale, Oregon, in 1993.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Homer J. E. Townsend, November 2000 (Lib. Acc. 24398, Photo Acc. 2001D025).

Related Materials

Other materials at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library relating to Mabel A. Wood include the books "The China Letters of Mabel Wood," edited by Homer J. E. Townsend (Goldendale, Wash.: H.J.E. Townsend, 1986); and "Mabel Wood's Home Economics Scrapbook," edited by Homer J. E. Townsend (Goldendale, Wash.: H.J.E. Townsend, 1993).

Processing Information

Photographs in this collection had previously been cataloged as the Mabel Wood photographs collection, Org. Lot 1000, but were reprocessed in February 2023 in order to add manuscript materials with shared provenance to the collection. The expanded collection was retitled and redesignated as Coll 948.