Irene L. Craft was a serials assistant at the Oregon State College Library from 1943 to 1970. She was born in 1904, in Wyne, Kansas. She made an annual salary of $3,000. She was single when she came to work at OSC. In 1944, she took a leave of absence, but returned in 1946. By 1949, she was promoted to assistant librarian with a salary raise to $4,000. In 1950, she became an assistant professor with no pay raise. By 1952, her salary rose to $5,000, due to increased responsibilities because of another staff member’s resignation. She resigned in 1970. Her final salary was $13,632. She was granted the status of Associate Professor Emeritus, which assured her life membership on the university faculty, and distinguished her as “one who has earned distinction and respect through many years of dedicated and effective service”.
Edith Jeffers Freeman was an Extension Rural Sociologist at Oregon State from 1946 to 1954. She was born in 1900, in Frederick, South Dakota. She received her Bachelor of Science in Home Economics from the University of Washington in 1932. She received her Master of Science in Family Relations from Cornell University in 1939 and her Ph.D. in Rural Sociology from Cornell in 1943. Her thesis for her master’s degree was titled “Family Education through Home Visits”. Her thesis for her Ph.D. was titled “Social Class as a Factor in the Family Group Relations of Certain Farm Families”. Before coming to OSC, she worked as an Assistant Professor in Sociology for Pratt Institute. She was hired as a home demonstration agent at large for OSC in 1946, at an annual salary of $3,408. But due to high enrollment levels in the Department of Sociology during the Fall of 1946, she was transferred to the department to serve as an instructor from October to December. She returned to being a home demonstration agent after the Fall term of 1946. In 1948, Dr. Freeman was transferred to work under a new project under the Federal Cooperative Extension Department called “Rural Sociology”. She received the new title of Sociology Specialist, and an annual salary of $3,948. Under this project, Dr. Freeman studied the relations between marriage, family, and class in rural Oregon. She resigned in 1954, after her position was discontinued.
Gertrude Geraldine Ellison was a part-time English instructor at Oregon State College from 1946 to 1957. She was married to Joseph Waldo Ellison with no children when she came to OSC. She was born in 1901, in Centralia, Washington. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Washington in 1921 and received some graduate education from the University of California in 1925. She had previously taught at high schools in Montana and Washington throughout the 1920s. She filed for retirement in 1957.
Dora Braughton Cooper was a home demonstration agent for Wasco County for Oregon State College from 1944 to 1948. She was married with no children when she began working for OSC. Her annual salary was $2604. She was previously a teacher at Roseburg High School. She also did work with the 4-H Club in rural schools in Douglas County. She received two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in education and one in home economics, from OSC in 1942. She was promoted to assistant professor with an annual salary of $3,000 and relocated to Deschutes, Oregon in 1946. She resigned in 1948 to become a stay at home wife. She was born in 1913, in Paradise, Oregon.
Ruth Esther Crawford was a home demonstration agent in Josephine County for Oregon State College from 1941 to 1946. Her annual salary was $2,304. She was 36 years old and unmarried when she came to work at OSC. She had previously worked for the Kansas State extension service as a home furnishings specialist. Although she lived in Corvallis while she worked at OSC, she listed Manhattan, Kansas as her permanent address. She received her Bachelor of Science from Kansas State College in 1932, where she studied home economics. She received some graduate education from Colorado State College in 1939 and Oregon State College in 1940. She resigned in 1946 to be married. Her final salary was $3,300. She was born in 1904, in Burns, Kansas.
Percy Margaret GIll was a physical education instructor for women at OSC from 1945 to 1962. Gill was born in 1909, in Glencoe, Illinois. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Physical Education from the University of California in 1931. Before coming to work at OSC, Gill worked for the American Red Cross. Before World War Two, she was an instructor in physical education at the College of Holy Names in Oakland, California. Once hired at Oregon State, she started at an annual salary of $2,400. She received her Master of Arts in Physical Education in 1948 while still working at OSC. In 1950, Gill was promoted to Assistant Professor and to Associate Professor in 1955. In 1957, she took sabbatical leave to pursue her Ph.D. at Columbia University. She resigned in 1962.
Elizabeth Jane Knapp was born in Entiot Washington. She worked at OSC as a Home Demonstration Agent at the rank of Assistant Professor from 1943-1955. She received her Bachelor of Science from Oregon State College in 1929, attended a summer graduate program at Washington State College in 1932, and attended the spring term of Portland Extension Center. She worked at Portland High School as a teacher of Home Economics and General Science for 1930-31, worked as a substitute teacher for Milwaukee High School in 1932-33. She worked here part time for one year, and then spent eight years as a Home Management Supervisor from January 1935-43. There she was in charge of Farm Security work in all of Douglas County, and by that point had worked and lived among farmers for twenty-two years. She was temporarily transferred to the central office as County Extension Agent-at-Large in 1952, where she organized a short course for twenty-five Home Economics teachers from across the world from April 26-June 21. Thereafter, she applied for and received sabbatical leave for a year to obtain her Master of Arts at Columbia University in Cooperative Extension. She spent two-thirds of her sabbatical studying in New York, and one-third travelling. Of her time living in New York, she remarked on the change in the cultural environment of the rural farmlands she had spent most of her life on. She reported that “the experience of living in a big city and being… growled at by bus drivers frequently sent [her] off to the library to read more books and articles on “what makes people behave as they do.” She visited Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands, where she stayed with women who did similar work to a Home Extension Agent. She visited agricultural schools, home economics schools, observed the training of teachers, and saw the daily life and holiday celebrations of other countries. She visited an area in the Netherlands which had recently been struck by what is now known as the 1953 North Sea flood. She attended the international Home Economics Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she stayed in a hostel with thirty other foreign home economics teachers. She spent another month travelling alone as a tourist throughout Europe. In 1955, she resigned, at a salary of $5,100, to accept a position in the Extension Service at Purdue University as Assistant State Leader in Home Economics.
Dorothy Lauderdale was an Instructor of Architecture, where she instructed the Home Economics sections in House Planning and Architectural Drawing from 1949 to 1952. She was born in 1924 in Corvallis, Oregon. She was married to Robert Walter Lauderdale, and they lived on Kings Road. She received her Bachelor of Science in Home Economics and Education from OSC in 1947, and completed some graduate work in Education at OSC by the time of August 1949. She was a recipient of the Minnie E. Lee Scholarship in 1944, and was a member of Delta Zeta sorority and the American Association of University Women. Her previous employment was as a part-time laboratory technician in the architecture department of OSC, where she worked for one academic year in 1948-49. She had also been an instructor in Home Economics at Grants Pass High School for the previous two years. In 1952, she took sick leave for a month in January, as she needed to undergo surgery.
Lyda Mae LaPalombara was born Lyda Mae Ecke in 1924, in Chicago, Illinois. She worked at OSC as an Instructor of English from 1946 to 1950. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Illinois in 1945, where she minored in education and music. She completed some of a graduate degree at the University of Illinois, where she also concentrated in English and music. She taught freshman composition at the University of Illinois for one year before coming to OSC. In 1947, she married Joseph Guido La Palombara, and resigned in 1950 at a salary of $3,100.
Dorothy Magee was an instructor in freshman composition/english for a year in 1942 at a salary of $1700. She was born in 1910, in Indianapolis, Indiana. She completed undergraduate work at Barnard College, the University of Southern California, and the University of Michigan, receiving her Bachelor of Arts from the lattermost in 1940. For her undergraduate degree, she studied English, with additional study in history, philosophy, fine arts, French, and education. She received a record-breaking grade in economics while at the University of Michigan, and received their first A+. She completed graduate work at Smith College, where she received a scholarship, and the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving her Master of Arts from the former in 1933, where she focused on American Literature and education. Her thesis was “Some Relations Between New England Transcendentalism and Music and the Plastic Arts.” Before coming to OSC, she was a teacher in Grand Haven, Michigan, and had spent two years doing office work and three years in various retailing jobs. In her recommendations, her professors described her as quiet, brilliant, tactful, modest, possessing of initiative, and seemed very impressed by her physical attractiveness. In her time as a student, she was involved in many extracurricular activities, was a member of the glee, drama, riding, and journalism clubs--and was was the woman’s editor of a college newspaper. She was a member of numerous academic associations, including Theta Sigma Phi at University of Michigan, of which she was president in 1932. She spent her leisure time gardening, travelling, outdoor exercise, and going to concerts and plays. She attended some meetings during 1940 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. She traveled to Mexico, Canada, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. She resigned in 1943 to complete advanced work at Stanford.