A longtime Corvallis resident raised on a local poultry farm, Beth Russell graduated from Oregon State College in 1937 with an undergraduate degree in Home Economics. After college, Beth worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad and became active in local service organizations.
Hope Chamberlin was born December 2, 1918 in Portland, Oregon, the daughter of Oregon State College professor of entomology W.J. "Joe" Chamberlin. While attending Oregon State College, Chamberlin led an active life as an undergraduate, serving as the feature editor for the college newspaper, the Barometer, as well as functioning as the copy editor and a member of the editorial board. Hope Chamberlin graduated from Oregon State College in 1938 with a degree in Home Economics. In 1973 she published A Minority of Members, a lively account of the personal and political lives of the 85 women senators and representatives who served in the U.S. Congress from 1917 to 1973. The book earned her the 1974 Christopher Award for adult nonfiction. After her death on March 11, 1974, Chamberlin was memorialized in the Congressional Record. The former Journalism Department at Oregon State University established the Hope Chamberlin Award for outstanding communication achievements.
Extension Home Demonstration staff at Oregon State Agricultural College. Includes Dean Ava Milam, lower left, and Mabel Mack, standing second from left.
Betty Hole attended Oregon State College in 1930-1931 as a student in home economics. She was a Naval Subsistence Officer at the Pentagon from 1948 to 1973 and was responsible for the installation of feeding operations on military bases and for standardization of recipes. She was also an active member of the OSU College of Home Economics Development Council and the Centennial Campaign Committee. The Betty Hole Child Development Laboratory in OSU's Family Study Center is named in her honor. She died in California on 6 August 1994.
Maud Wilson came to OAC in 1925 to teach in the College of Home Economics and was the first faculty member at OAC to conduct research full-time in home economics. Specializing in the study of housing design, Wilson also served as head of Home Economics for the Agricultural Experiment Station. She retired in 1950.
Sara Watt Prentiss was a Professor of Child Development and Parent Education from 1930 and Head of Household Administration from 1936 until her retirement in 1952. She was born in 1886 in Sarnia Ontario, Canada. At age eight, her family moved to Tillamook County, Oregon, where her father hoped to succeed in the timber industry. After she graduated high school, she earned money teaching in schools, which put her through her first year as a pharmacy student at the University of Washington. By the end of her freshman year, “this enterprising girl” was engaged to her physiology professor, Dr. Charles W. Prentiss. They married in the spring of her sophomore year, and spent the summer visiting his family and friends in Vermont, and briefly lived in Washington D.C. In February, they moved to Chicago, where her husband began work as a professor of microscopic anatomy at Northwestern University Medical School. They had three sons, but the first passed away at 15 months. After seven years of marriage, her husband passed away in 1915 from complications from a surgery for appendicitis. Her sons, Robert and Donald, were four and two years old each at the time. She had two options: return to her parents, as she was expected to, or support her family herself. She chose the latter. Prentiss hoped that her early chemistry training might make her employable as a laboratory technician. One of her husband’s friends discouraged this, and recommended she talk with the head of the home economics department at the University of Chicago. This person strongly advised her to study home economics at OSC, although at the time Prentiss “hardly knew what home economics meant.” She decided to go to OSC, as it was close to her parents, but intended to return to Chicago to receive her Bachelor of Science. After two years and a summer session, she received a Bachelor of Science from OSC in 1917, and accepted a teaching position. Prentiss was described as someone of “dignity and poise [whose] white hair and calm, assuring personality command the respect and admiration of her many friends.” Ava B. Milam recommended her appointment to the faculty, and wrote that she considered Prentiss to be “one of the strongest graduates” of the Home Economics Department, a “woman of broad experience,” and well-suited to handle child care for the department. Prentiss taught the first course in child care ever offered at OSU--a one credit course in fall of 1917 entitled “Mothercraft,” which mostly discussed the “physical care of the child.” As demand increased, she had more opportunities to teach varied courses: on child development, behavior problems, parent education, and family relationships, occasionally making use of a nursery school laboratory. She initially taught courses concerning nutrition, but eventually devoted most of her time to the newly-established nursery school. In 1930, she was made a full professor of Child Development and Parent Education. Soon after, the National Research Council offered her a fellowship in child development. She studied at Merrill-Palmer, and the Universities of Minnesota, Chicago, and the University of California at Berkeley. In 1930, she received her master’s degree in psychology from UC Berkeley, where she was awarded a Laura Spelman Rockefeller Scholarship. She worked with UC Berkeley’s extension service, as a parent education specialist from 1934-36. In 1936, she returned to OSC to become head of the Department of Household Administration. She reached retirement age in 1951, but they retained her on a part-time basis for the summer session, in order to teach seminar readings in Child Development and Family Relationships. Upon her retirement, she was given Emeritus status. Upon her first hire, she made $810 fro a 10 month term, and upon her retirement in 1951 she was earning $7000 a year. As for her sons, Robert graduated OSC in 1932 with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in the field of entomology. He was a member of the “record-beating relay hurdle team in his senior year,” and after completing graduate school, lived in Salem with two children. Donald attended OSC for three years as a science major and member of Phi Kappa Phi, and thereafter attended the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland. Both had two sons, but Donald passed away shortly before Prentiss’ retirement. She took in his children until her daughter-in-law, Marion, finished her education. She died at age 68 on August 1st, 1954. She co-authored an article titled “the Observation of Food Habits in Young Children” with Dr. Mary C Jones, which was published in the seventh volume of Childhood Education. She was a member of numerous learned societies, including Phi Kappa Phi, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the American Association of University Professors. As a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, she was nominated for a Women of Achievement award in 1956. She was also a member of the Presbyterian church.