Showing 87 results

Authority record
Person

Winnifred Olsen

  • 4.3.5
  • Person
  • 1916-2011

Winnifred "Winnie" Olsen (nee Castle) was born on July 26, 1916 in Olympia, Washington. She attended and graduated from Washington State College (Washington State University) with a degree in sociology and journalism. She was involved in a number of organizations and causes including Red Cross, Girl Scouts, March of Dimes, United Good Neighbors, and many more. Winnie was also a writer and producer for a local Olympia Saturday morning radio show, “Mother Goose Radio Party”, from 1948 to 1957. Afterwards, she joined the Olympia High School PTA, City Council PTA, and the Citizens Advisory Council on Education.

She was also a member of the Olympia branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for 60 years and was its president for two years. Along with this involvement, Winnie also helped to organize the Thurston County Juvenile Protection Committee and the Olympia Panhellenic Association. She wrote for the Olympia chapters of the YWCA, League of Women Voters, and Junior Programs.

Her career with Tacoma Public Schools began in 1967 and ended with her retirement in 1984. During this time, she focused on creating material that highlighted marginalized groups in the Pacific Northwest. She compiled over 100 years of information about the history of the Tacoma Public Schools for research for her book, For the Record: A History of the Tacoma Public Schools, 1869-1984.

After her retirement in 1984, Winnifred went on to volunteer around Olympia, serving at the Timberland Library, Friends of the Library, Thurston County Historic Commission, Washington State School Retirees Association, and others. In 1997, the Bush Family Interpretive Park was dedicated partially due to her extensive research on the history pioneer George Bush.

Winnifred died at the age of 94 in Lacey, Washington. She was awarded the YWCA Lifetime Achievement, WSU Alumni of the Year, Olympia High School Alumni Hall of Fame, Alpha Gamma Delta Distinguished Citizen, Olympia City Council Historic Preservation Award.

William Trueblood

  • 1.5.2
  • Person
  • 12/31/1914-6/14/1983

William Trueblood was born in Ottumwa, Iowa on December 31, 1914. He lived in Tacoma for 55 years and was a photographer for the City of Tacoma. He died in Tacoma on June 14, 1983, at the age of 68.

William Hocking

  • 2.2.4
  • Person
  • 1926-1976

William (Bill) Hocking was born in Seattle, WA in 1926, and grew up in Olympia. He was an architect and a member of both the Tacoma-Pierce County Civic Arts Commission and the Historical Landmarks Preservation Commission. After his death in June 1976, the Tacoma News Tribune described him as “a long-time advocate of preservation of Tacoma’s environment... Hocking was outspoken in his solutions, whether it was allowing people to use the City Waterway of the saving the old City Hall Annex.”

[1] “Wm. Hocking, architect,” The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) · Mon, Jun 14, 1976 · Page 30, https://www.newspapers.com/image/735706573

Wanda Thompson

  • CAC1006
  • Person

Wanda Thompson was born in a small rural town in Florida. Her father served in the military and her mother was a teacher. Early in her life Thompson moved around due to her father’s job, and has lived in places like Germany, France, California, and Georgia, before moving to the Hilltop area of Tacoma. She attended the all-girls Catholic academy, Aquinas Academy, which in 1974 combined with an all-boys Catholic academy to form Bellarmine Preparatory School. She won Ms. Hilltop in 1969 and ran for Ms. Downtown Tacoma in 1980.

After high school Thompson attended Evergreen State College and studied cultural anthropology and journalism. While at Evergreen she also studied abroad in France. Out of college her first job was at the Tacoma Public Library in the genealogy department. From there she went on to work at the Puget Sound National Bank, Civic Arts Commission, Fashion Fair Cosmetics, the Washington State Department of Corrections, and the Rehabilitation Council of Washington to name a few. Thompson has been involved in the Tacoma community through her involvement with organizations like the Tacoma Urban League, the Tacoma Downtown Association, and the Afro-Pageant and Show. She is also a published author.

Virna Haffer

  • 3.5.5
  • Person
  • 1899-1974

Virna Haffer (then Virna Hanson) was born in 1899 in Aurora, Illinois. In 1907, her family moved to Washington to join the Home Colony, an anarchist community located near Tacoma. At age fourteen, Haffer moved to Tacoma where she lived with a local family and enrolled as a student at Stadium High School. She soon began working at the studio of Harriette H. Ihrig, located at 1107 South E Street. After a brief marriage to fellow Home Colony resident Clarence Schultz in 1919, she married Paul Haffer who would appear in many of her photographs. Paul, a labor activist and organizer, wrote for a number of local workers' publications and spent four months in prison for libel over criticisms he made of George Washington in a letter published in The News Tribune in 1916. Their son, Jean Paul, also became a frequent photographic subject after his birth in 1923. In the 1920s, she participated in a number of exhibitions in Seattle and was involved in both the Seattle Camera Club and Tacoma Camera Club. During this period, Haffer opened her portrait studio which she would continue to operate for fifty years. In 1930, she gained national attention with her work included in the Seattle Camera Club Final International Exhibition and reproduced in The American Annual of Photography. That same year, her first local solo exhibition was held in the lobby of the Wintrhop Hotel where she displayed both photographs and block prints. Over her career, Haffer experimented with drawing, painting, sculpture, fabric design, and music. In 1931, she married Norman Randall who would also become a subject of her work. Many other local artists and friends also appeared in her photographs. In the 1930s, she collaborated with poet Elizabeth Sale on a book project, Abundant Wild Oats, that would combine Sale's poetry with Haffer's artwork. The work was never published. In the 1960s, Haffer began experimenting with photograms and became an authority on the medium. Her book, Making Photograms: The Creative Process of Painting with Light, was published in 1969. One of her photograms, "California Horizon," was included in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's traveling exhibitions and was later purchased by MOMA for their permanent collection. She was awarded the highest honor from the Professional Photographers of America and featured in exhibitions across the country. She died on April 5, 1974.

Virginia Shackelford

  • 6.1.21
  • Person
  • 05/21/1915-02/15/1933

Virginia Shackelford was born on May 21, 1915. She was a prominent figure in Tacoma’s local politics and worked to restore the Pantages Theater and Union Station. (1) She was also a member of the John Birch Society, a right-wing political advocacy group. However, she left the society after a dispute with national headquarters concerning the distribution of anti-Semitic literature by several members of the society. (2) In the 1950s, Shackelford started lecturing at meetings and on her local radio show about anti-communism. She was particularly invested in the case of a school counselor fired in 1955 after refusing to answer questions about her alleged communist activities at a congressional hearing in Seattle. In her later years, Shackelford redirected her focus to restoring the Pantages Theater, where she performed as a girl with her father. (3) She died of pneumonia on February 15, 1993 at the age of 77. (1)

Tyra Melvia Westling

  • 4.3.7
  • Person
  • 1897-1975

Tyra Melvia Westling was an educator of the Deaf who taught in the United States, the Philippines, and China. Born in Nebraska in 1897 to Swedish immigrant parents, her family moved to Tacoma in 1901 (1,4). In 1916 she graduated from Everett High School in the Normal (teacher training) course, after transferring from Tacoma’s Stadium High School the previous year (2). Her interest in Deaf education led her to visit numerous schools on the East Coast, where she sought employment (3). In 1924 she accepted her first teaching position overseas, in the Philippines (3). By 1948, while at the Chefoo School for the Deaf, she and her students were evacuated due to unrest associated with the Chinese Communist revolution, and she subsequently taught at the Ming Sum School for the Blind in Canton (3). Later, in the United States, she taught at the Tucker Maxon Oral School for the Deaf in Portland, OR, and Tacoma Public Schools. She died in Tacoma in 1975 at the age of 78 (4).

Tom Terrien

  • 2.7.2
  • Person
  • 1917-2009

Tom Terrien was born in Lake City in 1917 to Antionette and Edward Terrien. He attended Lake City School and Lincol High School. After graduating, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1939, he began his 40 year career with Tacoma Transit. In the 1960s, he was promoted into operational management for the transit system. During this time, he was responsible for hiring the first Black bus drivers for Tacoma Transit and the first women bus drivers since WWII. He was eventually promoted to Superintendent of Transportation and retired in 1981.

Thor Tollefson

  • 6.1.5
  • Person
  • 1901-1982

Thor Tollefson was born in Perley, Minnesota on May 2, 1901. He was the oldest of seven children. His family moved to Tacoma when he was ten years old, and when his father died, he dropped out of school to go to work and support his mother and siblings at the age of fourteen. After seven years of working in the lumber mills he went back to school and graduated from Lincoln High in 1924. He then went on to the University of Washington and graduated from law school in 1930. He married Eva Tollefson in 1934 and they had three daughters.

After opening a private law practice, Tollefson was elected Pierce County Prosecutor in 1938 and served in that office until 1946, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican for the 6th congressional district. He served nine terms in Congress, until he was defeated for re-election in 1964. As a congressman he served as chairman of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and was twice appointed U.S. delegate to the Interparliamentary Union. After leaving Congress he was appointed Director of the Fisheries Department for Washington state by Governor Dan Evans in 1965. He retired from the department in 1975 and passed away on December 30, 1982 at the age of 81 years old.

Thomas Handforth

  • 3.5.3
  • Person
  • 9/15/1897-10/19/1948

A native of Tacoma, Thomas Handforth won international acclaim as an artist, author, and illustrator. Born in Tacoma on September 19, 1897, Handforth attended Stadium High School (then Tacoma High School). There he created the art for the high school annuals. Post-graduation he attended the University of Washington then moved to New York for art training. During his service in World War I he drew anatomical drawings in Washington, D.C. After the war, he returned to New York and studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller and later with Mahonri Young. Later he trained in draughtsmanship and painting at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He won numerous prizes and became a member of various societies of etchers.
In 1927 he visited Morocco and in 1929 relocated to Mexico. Two years later traveled to China where he stayed until 1937. It was in China where he developed his skills with lithography. From China, he went to Southeast Asia (then Indo-China) and returned to the United States at the approach of World War II. He returned to service in the Army and after his release returned to Tacoma in 1944 and again in 1945 to make portraits of his many former hometown friends. Handforth is best known for his children's book "Mai Li", published in 1938, for which he won the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1939. The other books he illustrated include Sidonie, Totou in Bondage, and Tranquilinas Paradise. Handforth died at McCornak General Hospital in Pasadena. His death was attributed to acute coronary thrombosis.

Thomas H. Rutter

  • 1.5.8
  • Person
  • 1837-1925

Thomas H. Rutter was born in Truro, Cornwall, England on January 1, 1837. Before immigrating to the United States, he worked as a veterinarian. He moved to the Montana Territory in 1864 after hearing reports of the Gold Rush. By 1867, Rutter had developed an interest in photography and started a photography studio with R. J. Nesbitt in Glendale, Montana. In 1870, he opened his own studio in Butte, Montana. Rutter and his wife moved to Tacoma, Washington in 1888, where he opened a photography studio on 1346 Pacific Avenue. He worked there until 1900 and then moved to North Yakima where he continued to work as a photographer. The subject of his photographs was primarily the city and surrounding areas. He also took photos of the Yakima Native American tribe. In 1915, Rutter and his wife moved to Orting, Washington. Rutter died there on August 21, 1925, at the age of 88.

Theo Kissick

  • 3.6.3
  • Person

Theo Kissick and his wife Delilah were active members of the Hix n’ Chix square dance club of Tacoma, Washington. The Hix n’ Chix were affiliated with the Rainier Council of the Square and Folk Dance Federation of Washington. Theo and Delilah were part of the organizing committee of the 30th Annual National Square Dance Convention held in Seattle June 25-27, 1981. More than 20,000 dancers from across the US and from Australia, England, New Zealand, Sweden, Holland and Japan registered for the event.

Sulja Warnick

  • CAC1004
  • Person
  • June 6, 1942-

Sulja Warnick is a Tacoma resident who was a public school teacher in the Tacoma Public School dstrict. Early in her teaching career, she was called upon to help translate for Korean women married to service men on the military bases. This started her work with the Korean Women’s Association (KWA). KWA started as a small social club for Korean women and has expanded to a non-profit organization that provides education, affordable housing, in-home care for seniors, and social services, including domestic violence counseling for all groups of people. KWA now has offices in 14 Western Washington counties, serving up to 150,000 people of 40 nationalities and 35 language groups. The organization is now 51 years old.

Stephen Cysewski

  • 2.1.2
  • Person
  • 8/25/1945-7/20/2020

Stephen Cysewski was an American photographer known for his self-described "wandering" style of street photography. Born in Berkeley, California he primarily grew up in the Tacoma area and graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 1967. After college, he moved to Alaska as a VISTA volunteer where he lived for a year in the village of Shaktoolik. There he worked many jobs including as a high school counselor for Indian Education at West Anchorage High School. He earned his master’s of Liberal Arts degree from Alaska Pacific University and then was employed as an assistant professor in Information Technology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1991-2009. He retired as a professor in 2007 and was granted emeritus status. Throughout his life, he traveled the world to such places as Korea, Thailand, Europe, Alaska, and Washington State to take photographs. In 1979 Cysewski traveled to Tacoma where he took hundreds of photographs of the downtown and residential areas in the city. Cysewski passed away at home in Alaska on July 20th, 2020 after battling pancreatic cancer.

Sallie Shawl

  • 3.4.1
  • Person

Sallie Shawl of Lakebay, Washington, has been active in local social justice causes since the 1970s. Born to a Jewish family in San Francisco, Shawl became involved in activism after seeing images of peaceful civil rights protesters being attacked by dogs in the mid-1950s. She attended UC Berkeley before moving to New York City to work with the National Council of Churches. After relocating to Lakebay in 1976, Shawl worked in Tacoma at Associated Ministries and the YMCA Women’s Support Center.

She joined the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and staged regular protests against the presence of the Trident nuclear submarine base in Bremerton. She was arrested multiple times for acts of civil disobedience. In 1988, she and Renee Krisko, of Poulsbo, were sentenced to six months in jail for blocking a train carrying missile fuel to the Trident base.

In 1991, she began managing the Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful project which organized volunteers crews to paint the homes of low income Pierce County residents. She founded the Tacoma chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and was a leader in People for Peace, Justice and Healing, Palestinian-Israeli Peace Endeavors, Tacoma Arabs, Jews, and Others for Peace and Occupy Tacoma. In 2013, she was awarded the Greater Tacoma Peace Prize.

Royal Gove

  • 6.1.2
  • Person
  • 1856-1920

Royal Amenzo Gove (1856-1920) was an early Tacoma physician, city council member, and public health officer. He was born in Vermont and raised in Minnesota. After studying medicine and surgery in Chicago, Louisville, and Iowa, Dr. Gove practiced medicine in Minnesota before moving to Tacoma in 1890 to start a new practice. In April 1892 and again in 1894, he was elected to the Tacoma City Council. Dr. Gove also served on the Washington State Board of Examiners. An active Mason, Dr. Gove was Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Washington in 1908 and 1909. He was a member of the Evergreen Lodge, Tacoma chapter; Royal Arch Masons; Scottish Rite; the Grotto and Eastern Star; and the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was variously President and Treasurer of the Pierce County Medical Society, which he helped to found, and was also a member of the State Medical Society, the American Medical Society, and the Tacoma Commercial Club. He died in Tacoma on January 21, 1920 after a three month illness.

Ronald Magden

  • 6.1.8
  • Person
  • 1926-2018

Ronald Magden was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, in 1926. (1) He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington in 1965 while teaching at Renton Junior-Senior High School. (2) After receiving his Ph.D., Magden started teaching at Tacoma Community College until his retirement in 1983. (2) Magden helped to edit ILWU Local 23’s grant proposal to the Washington Commission for the Humanities in 1977. However, after the hired writers struggled to write Local 23’s history, Magden was asked to take on the project in 1979. This was the beginning of a thirty-year study in Longshore history and the Pacific Coast. (1) He was known as a local historian, researcher, and educator. Magden’s first book, The Working Waterfront, was published in 1982. (2) He wrote eight more books: Pioneer School, Furusato (Going Home), History of Seattle Waterfront Workers, The Working Longshore Men, and Mukashi Mukashi (Long Long Ago). (2) Magden married Joan Lorraine Mulroney on August 9th, 1949, and they had three children together. Magden passed away on December 31st, 2018. (2)

Robert Ramsey

  • 3.6.4
  • Person
  • 1920-2006

Robert Wayne Ramsey was born on October 9, 1920, in Byron, Washington to farm owners Prentice and Della Ridout Ramsey. He participated in the National Guard and was called into service with the 161st Infantry at Camp Murray. He met his wife, Georgia Kathryn Hayner, and they married on December 24, 1940 before settling in the Olympia area. Ramsey held many jobs over the course of his life. He worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), served in World War II and the Korean War, taught floriculture at Oregon State University, served as president of Landscapers Northwest, as senior partner at Chaffee-Zumwalt & Associates design firm, a partner of Mann, Milegan, Morse & Ramsey in Seattle, and the manager of the Snake Lake Nature Center. While at the Snake Lake Nature Center, he helped to start the Junior Naturalist program.

After Ramsey retired, he continued to hold membership in many different groups and societies. Ramsey led hikes for the Boy Scouts of America and a member of the the Puget Sound Mycological Society, where he served as a board member from 1969 to 1974 and president from 1970 to 1972. He was also a member of the Tahoma Audubon Society, being a charter member from 1969 onwards, board member from 1969 to 1976, and president from 1973 to 1975 and again in 1983. He chaired the Nisqually River Basin Study from 1973 to 1974.

Robert Ramsey also was also given the title of Pierce County’s Resource Conservationist of the Year in 1972. He was also appointed to a statewide committee for non-point water pollution abatement planning from 1976 to 1981 and being a chairman for it from 1980 to 1981. He was also a member of the Pacific Northwest Key Council for scientific study, identification, and keys for northwest mushrooms from 1977 to 1997. He also served as a chairman for the McNeil Island Committee for conservation matters during its change from federal prison to state prison from 1979 to 1983. Ramsey was also an author, writing works such as “Two Steps to Destruction”, “Onsite Surface Water Management”, “Pathway Planning”, as well as preparing a hypothesis for the origin of the Mima Mounds found in Thurston County, WA from 1988 to 1992.

Reverend David Alger

  • 3.7.5
  • Person

Reverend David T. Alger served as Executive Director of Associated Ministries for nearly thirty years from 1980 until 2009. (1) During his tenure, Reverend Alger expanded the Hilltop-based non-profit from an annual budget of $58,000 in 1980 into an organization with a budget of $3.7 million and a membership of over 200 congregations, religious groups, and interfaith partners. (2)

Reverend Alger played a vital role in the founding and growth of many agencies, including: the Pierce County AIDS Foundation, the Indochinese Culture and Service Center, the Shalom Center (focusing on Central American and Middle Eastern Peace), the South Sound Peace and Justice Center, the Pierce County Dispute Resolution Center, Faith Partners Against Family Violence, the Moments of Blessing program (services held to reclaim places where homicides have occurred), and the Hilltop Action Coalition. (1)

Reverend Alger graduated from the College of Wooster with a BA in Sociology/Religion. He then graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago with a Master’s in Social Work and received his Master’s in Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in 1971. Reverend Alger received the Tacoma Peace Prize in 2009 and the Community Service Award from the Rotary Clubs of Pierce County in 1989.

Red Kelly

  • 2.3.2
  • Person
  • 1927-2004

Thomas “Red” Kelly was born on August 29, 1927, in Shelby, Montana, and moved around between various Montana orphanages from when he was a toddler until he reunited with his family at 16 years of age in Seattle. (1, 2) Kelly began learning to play the double-bass during his freshman year at Seattle Prep high school. (1) Jazz bandleader Tiny Hill was looking for a bassist while on tour in Seattle and hired Kelly to play. This sparked a more than three-decade touring schedule for Kelly which began with playing bass in Chubby Jackson’s Big Band in 1949. (1) During the early 1950s, Kelly toured with Herbie Fields, Charlie Barnet, Red Norvo and Claude Thornhill. Kelly also toured and recorded with Woody Herman’s band throughout the 1950s. (1)

Kelly returned to Seattle and then went to Los Angeles where he worked with Stan Kenton’s band as well as Med Flory and Maynard Ferguson, who would become lifelong friends. Throughout the 1960s, Kelly played with bandleader Harry James, where he struck up a friendship with famed drummer Buddy Rich. (1) Kelly married Donna Griswold in 1974 and they opened their own jazz club “The Tumwater Conservatory” while settling in Tumwater, Washington.

It was during this time, in 1976, that Kelly began his OWL party, based on the slogans of “Out With Logic” and “On With Lunacy”. (2) Kelly’s friends and family joined him on the ticket as Kelly ran a mock campaign for governor. He got 9 percent of the vote, which is a total “most third-party candidates can only dream of.” (3) Kelly and his family would wind up moving to Tacoma, Washington, and from 1986 until 2003, operated Kelly’s, a jazz bar, on South 11st Street and Tacoma Avenue South. (4) When not playing live shows with his various jazz-playing friends who would drop by the club, Kelly also ran for mayor of Tacoma under the OWL Party in 1989 and received 10 percent of the vote during a six-candidate primary. (3)

Wife, Donna, died in 1999 and Kelly closed his Tacoma jazz bar in September of 2003. (1) Kelly died on June 9, 2004, at the age of 76. Some of the well-known players Red Kelly played with during his life include Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Billy Eckstein, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Billie Holiday, Harry James, Stan Kenton, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich and Frank Sinatra.

Ralph William Thompson

  • 2.5.2
  • Person
  • 1889-1961

Ralph William Thompson was born in Livingston, Montana, on October 26, 1889. (1) He graduated from the University of Washington in 1914 and attended the University of Minnesota. (2) Thompson lived in Washington state for 60 years and served as an attorney for 47 years. (2) Thompson was also a member of Sigma Chi, the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association, and the Tacoma Club. (2) Thompson married Grace M. Knowles, whose father, Samuel Crawford Knowles, was a lumberman. (3) Ralph W. Thompson died on December 16, 1961, in Tacoma.

Prue Stuckey

  • 1.5.3
  • Person
  • 1920-1993

Prue Stuckey was born in Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands on September 22, 1920. He lived there for ten years, then went to school in New York. He was in the Army from 1939 to 1945 and later joined the Tacoma Police Department. He took a course at Eastman Kodak Co., which led him to become the police department photography instructor from 1952 to 1955. He was also the president of the Pierce County Professional Photographers Association. He was interested in the use of color photography in police work. After 26 years in the Tacoma Police Department, retired and died on April 1, 1993.

Perry Keithley

  • 4.3.1
  • Person
  • 1907-1968

Perry Keithley was born August 7, 1906 in Castle Rock, Washington. He attended Centralia High School (Class of 1925) and Bellingham Normal School (1925-1927). After starting his career as an educator, Keithley attended summer sessions at Western Washington College of Education where he was a part of the first four year graduating class in 1933. From 1928 to 1930, he taught at Meadows School in Thurston County where he was one of two total teachers. He taught all students in grades 5-8. He then moved to Lincoln School in Gig Harbor where he served as principal and taught 7th and 8th grades from 1930 to 1931. In 1931, Keithley was hired as a teacher and superintendent of the Midland and Harvard School Districts in Pierce County. His early years working for the school district coincided with financial challenges caused by the Great Depression. During this time, Keithley served as superintendent, principal, teacher, coach, and school bus driver. He also organized summer recreational programs for students. For several years, he was the youngest superintendent in the state of Washington. He chaired the statewide legislative committee of the Washington Education Association and led an effort to consolidate the Midland, Parkland, Collins, and Central Avenue school districts into the Franklin-Pierce School District. Due to health problems, Keithley retired in 1957. He died at age 61 of pancreatic cancer in 1968. In 1960, Perry G. Keithley Junior High (later Middle School) was named in his honor.

Penelope Loucas

  • 3.5.4
  • Person
  • 1940-

Penelope H. Loucas was born in Roundup, Montana in 1940. She received her B.A. in English and French Literary Studies, as well as an M.A. and Fulbright Scholarship in Modern Greek Poetry and French Surrealism. She was appointed Curator of Exhibitions from 1988-1990 at the Tacoma Art Museum. She specialized in multi-cultural interdisciplinary studies and exhibitions including but not limited to: Modern and Contemporary Realism in the West, American, Asian and Canadian Contemporary ceramics, as well as Native American art. Much of her curatorial work looked at and promoted artists within the Northwest region of the United States.

From 1983-1985 she opened an art gallery in her own apartment, by the name of “The Upstairs Gallery” in Helena, Montana. She later took her curatorial experience to Tacoma where she owned and directed a similar “Penelope Loucas Gallery” apartment space from 1990-2007. Penelope was a part-time professor of Languages & Literature and Academic Writing for International Students at Pacific Lutheran University from 2003-2007. She also served as an adjunct professor at University of Washington from 2000-2003, as an Education Consultant at Clover Park Technical College in 1999 and lectured at the Evergreen State College in Summer 1991. At different points in her career she held many administrative positions, locally Director of the Tacoma Arts Commission, and a Grant Writer/Director of the Enumclaw Arts Commission.

Paul Meyers

  • Person
  • 1900-1985

Paul Meyers was an avid collector of railroad miscellanea, with a special focus on the Great Northern Railway. He was born in Leavenworth, Washington in 1900 and took his first railroad job at 12 years old as a water boy for a section gang. He spent 49 years working for the Great Northern Railway in a variety of different positions, and retired in Tacoma as general agent for freight and passenger service in 1966. He was also a member of the Tacoma City Planning Commission and was active in city clubs such as Tacoma Rotary, Tacoma Elks, and the Tacoma Executive Association. Paul Meyers died in Tacoma on August 11, 1985 at the age of 85.

Paul Jackson

  • CAC1001
  • Person
  • 1968-

Paul Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 20, 1968. His mother, Vickie Cunningham-Jackson-Davis was born in Choopee, South Carolina. She was a twin and the oldest of ten children. She graduated from South Carolina State University and served as a civilian in the Army. His father fought in the Vietnam War. As a child, Jackson moved to Willingboro, New Jersey, a suburb 15 miles northeast of Philadelphia. The family purchased a home in the Levitt and Sons residential development, which had been successfully sued in the late 1950s for refusing to sell to Black families. While in grade school, Jackson lived in Fairfax, Virginia, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Cambridge, his mother attended MIT. It was there that Jackson saw his first computer when he was in the 6th grade. He played violin in the Cambridge Youth Orchestra and began playing guitar.

He attended Prairie View A&M University in Texas where he played bass in an award winning funk band. He received a National Science Foundation scholarship to obtain his PhD in computer engineering. His research focused on augmented and virtual reality within the aerospace industry. He completed three summer internships with Boeing and, after graduation, was hired full time and relocated to Seattle.

He has presented nationally and internationally on a range of topics including deep space exploration and digital media authoring. Jackson is the co-chair of the Swedish MS support group. He is a Chronic Disease Self-Care Manager and is certified in Adult Mental Health First Aid through the African American Reach and Teach Health Ministries. He and his wife, artist and educator Jasmine Brown, now reside in Tacoma.

Nels Bjarke

  • 6.1.11
  • Person
  • 1875-1950

Nels (Nils) Bjarke was born in 1875 in Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1915 and lived in Nebraska before moving and settling in Tacoma at the end of the first World War. He worked as a laborer in shipyards before becoming an engineer for the Fern Hill School. He moved to Fern Hill in 1927 with his family. Bjarke wrote about the history of the Fern Hill area including Byrd Mill Road and Naches Pass. He also compiled a history of Chief Leschi. Bjarke spearheaded the community effort to build the Fern Hill branch of the Tacoma Public Library by petitioning the library board and collecting signatures highlighting the desire for a local library. Bjarke died in 1950 at the age of 74.

Myron Kreidler

  • 2.1.10
  • Person
  • 1904-1985

Myron Kreidler was born in Tacoma in 1904. He attended Pacific Lutheran University and later became president of the Pacific Lutheran University Alumni Association from 1936-1937. He began his career as a 9th grade teacher at Mason Junior High. He later worked as a staff photographer at Pacific Lutheran University and owned Kreidler Photo Studio. He died in Tacoma in 1985 at the age of 81.

Murray Morgan

  • 6.1.1
  • Person
  • 1916-2000

Murray Morgan was born in Tacoma in 1916 to Henry Victor and Ada Camille Morgan. His father, a Unitarian Universalist Minister, was the publisher of a monthly religious periodical while his mother wrote children's plays and poetry. As a student, he wrote for both his junior high and high school newspapers. Before his 1933 graduation from Stadium High School, Morgan's article "How to Second a Boxer," was published nationally in Scholastic Magazine. He enrolled at the University of Washington where he studied journalism and edited the UW Daily. He graduated cum laude in 1937 and then moved to Hoquiam to report on sports and local news for the Grays Harbor Washingtonian. He briefly returned to Seattle to edit the Seattle Municipal News. While there, he reunited with Rosa Northcutt, who had also attended UW and worked on the UW Daily. On March 5, 1939, Murray and Rosa were married in Tacoma. The couple went to Europe for their honeymoon where they embarked on a kayaking trip through Germany and Austria. Murray's reports on the trip were published in the Tacoma News Tribune. He then wrote for the Spokane Daily Chronicle before returning to the Grays Harbor Washingtonian as the City Editor. In 1941, he moved to New York City to pursue a Master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, media outlets expanded their operations and Murray began working on assignments for CBS, Time, and the New York Herald Tribune. Rosa attended his classes and took notes for him while he wrote. With her help, he completed the Master's program and was awarded a Pulitzer Fellowship. He and Rosa moved to Lake Patzcuaro, Mexico where Murray intended to study and write about the Mexican press. Just a few months after their arrival in Mexico, Murray was drafted into the army. His first book, a mystery called Day of the Dead, was published under the pen name Cromwell Murray in 1946. While stationed in the Aleutian Islands, Rosa encouraged Murray to write about the history of the island. She conducted research and sent the information to Murray. This resulted in his first history book, Bridge to Russia: Those Amazing Aleutians (1947). Murray was then transferred to the Pentagon to work as decoder. While in Washington, DC, he worked with Rosa to research the CSS Shenandoah which resulted in the book Dixie Raider (1948). The Morgans returned to Washington and lived on Maury Island where Murray wrote a second novel, The Viewless Winds. They then moved to Trout Lake where Murray would live for the rest of his life. He wrote for dozens of magazines and newspapers including Holiday, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, The Nation, and the Saturday Evening Post. He also worked as the copyeditor for the Tacoma Times and taught courses and advised the student newspaper at the University of Puget Sound. He briefly worked the graveyard shift as the bridgetender for the 11th Street Bridge which would later be renamed in his honor. In 1951, Murray's most successful book, Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle was published. In the early 1950s, Morgan added the role of broadcaster to his growing list of occupations. He and Jim Faber co-hosted a morning news program on KMO and then KTAC where they discussed Tacoma politics and became known for exposing and discussing corruption. In 1956, Morgan joined KTNT to host a morning program called "Our Town, Our World," which would continue for 15 years. In 1963, he started a regular review column for the Seattle periodical Argus. Between 1969 and 1981, he taught a course on Northwest history at Tacoma Community College. During this period, he also taught at Highline Community College, Pacific Lutheran University, and Fort Steilacoom Community College. Over the course of his career, he wrote or co-wrote 23 books. He died on June 22, 2000.

Mike Parker

  • 1.2.2
  • Person
  • 1947-2019

Mike Parker was born in Renton, Washington on May 23, 1947. He became the youngest legislator in Washington state history when he was elected to the State House of Representatives at age 26. He ran for U.S. Congress in 1976, but lost to fellow Democrat Norm Dicks in the primary. The following year, he launched his mayoral campaign. On November 8, 1977, he defeated state senator Lorraine Wojahn to become the youngest Mayor ever elected in Tacoma at age 30. Parker is most known for his role in developing plans and gathering support for the Tacoma Dome. He also played a key role in establishing a Tacoma Police Department motorcycle fleet and successfully lobbying the state Department of Transportation to include Tacoma in signage and branding for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. After his term as Mayor, he ran to become the first Pierce County Executive, but lost to Booth Gardner. He went on to pursue a career in the broadcast industry. At the time of his death in 2019, he was survived by his wife Maria and children Michael, Jr. Jeffrey, David, Dianna, and Sara along with seven grandchildren.

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