Viola Brainerd Shaffer was a Polk County home demonstration agent from 1946 to 1948. She was born in 1898, in Kansas City, Missouri. She earned her Bachelor of Science from OSC in 1939 in family relations and sociology, with additional study in clothing and manual arts. She did further study at Columbia University, Kansas State, and Chicago Technical Normal School, studying family economics. She was widowed when she came to OSC, with one 15-year-old son. She had five years of experience as a high school food and clothing teacher, and also had experience as a rural branch librarian. She maintained twenty-six rural branch libraries in two counties, and organized reading groups in connection with Home Department Extension Service in California. She also served as a Farm Security County Supervisor, District and Area Supervisor, and State Director of Home Management Supervisors in Oregon. She was a personal friend of Azalea Sager, who vouched for Shaffer’s work. She took a significant pay cut from her Farm Security work in joining OSC staff as an extension agent, but preferred this work so she could spend more than with her son. She was hired at $3300 per year. She resigned in 1948 to be married, at which point she took the name Mrs. Wells.
