The Alpha Study Club was organized in 1905 and federated in 1914. The group was originally created only for women of Tacoma's south side, and admitted no more than 20 members at any time. The focus of the group was primarily on the cultivation of its members, although there were minor philanthropic efforts following WWII. The last published record of an active meeting was on May 4, 1980. Club colors were pink and green, the club flower was the carnation and their motto was "in great things unity, in small things liberty, in all things charity."

Altrusa International Club was originally founded in 1917 in Tennessee. The purpose of Altrusa is to provide a location for women leaders in professions to work together to help their local community and world. Altrusa International Club of Tacoma was organized December 7th, 1938, and chartered April 26th, 1941. The group had biweekly meetings, starting in September of the year, and ending in July of the next year for the summer months. Lyle Ford Drushel, former Dean of Women at the College of Puget Sound was elected the first president of Altrusa in 1939. New leaders were elected at the end of every member year in June and July.

The women that were members of Altrusa were given roles to fulfill, such as President, Treasurer, Historian, Secretary, and others. These women organized different social engagements, dinners, and volunteer opportunities. Early on, Altrusa members focused on hosting dinners and fundraisers to donate money to organizations in need. Some examples of this are donating bone tools to Mary Bridge Hospital, purchasing war bonds, and donating money to UNICEF. Later in its history, Altrusa organized events and fundraisers to provide welcoming shelter for those affected by crime and homelessness, donated scholarships to college students in healthcare and education fields in the Tacoma/Pierce County area, and organized donation drives to help children access age-appropriate books.

Amzie D. Browning was born in Kent, WA, and moved to Tacoma in 1901. (1) He lived in Tacoma for 70 years, during which he was the owner and operator of Sharpe Sign Co. and was an oil and watercolor painter. (2) Many of his paintings were exhibited in Northwest shows. He also worked as a telegraph operator for the Northern Pacific Railway in 1909. (2) He took photographs documenting life in South Tacoma. Browning was a member of the Signwriters Union 403, Northwest Amateur Movie Council, and Morse Telegraph Club, and for 50 years, he was a member of the Tacoma Elks Lodge.(2) He married Beulah C. Kirt on September 15 1946. (3) Browning passed away on December 13, 1972.(4)

The Gamle Vikingers Forbund, or Ancient Order of Vikings, Ship No. 1 was created in 1892 as an extension of The Haabet (Hope) Literary Society, which had been active in the Tacoma community since 1890, providing an “English school for newcomers.” The organization, whose motto was “Brotherhood, Protection and Charity” included the founding members: Chas. Evans, Engvald Haug, Chas. Woog, Severin Haug, Ole Moen, Dirk Blaauw, G.O. Sande, C. Knutson, N.L. Ormsrud, Haakon Bader and Tom Knudson.

The society first appeared in newspapers in 1895, holding their annual celebration of Norway’s May 17th Constitution Day, which would frequently be attended by Tacoma political figures, including Mayor George P. Wright and accompaniment from the Walhalla Military Band. The organization also held annual Christmas celebrations which featured both Christian and Norse ceremonies, including a “representation of the ancient offering of sacrifice to Odin and Thor.”

In 1905, the society reserved a special train for members to visit Portland’s Lewis and Clark exposition together. In 1908, the 220 member organization purchased three acres in the north side of Fox Island at the entrance of Hales Passage for a lodge and picnic grounds for $50,000. The Ancient Order of Vikings eventually sold this property in order to invest in the Normanna Hall building at 1502 Martin Luther Way.

In 1941, the society donated their “Viking Library” to the Pacific Lutheran University, which included items which dated back to the Haabet Literary Society. Although the organization seems to have waned and revived on multiple occasions, a typed note within Log Book Six written by historian Hjalmer Jensen describes the final meeting of the order taking place on February 2nd, 1955.

Anderson, Ada Woodruff

Ada Woodruff Anderson was a Pacific Northwest writer and early resident. Born in San Francisco on July 4, 1860, her family moved to Shanghai, China, when she was three months old. She arrived in Tumwater, Washington, in 1865 after her father died. There her family lived with her mother’s brother, Nathaniel Crosby, grandfather of Bing Crosby. She attended high school in San Francisco, California, and returned to Washington around 1875. In 1879 she began teaching at a one-room pioneer school in Thurston County near Yelm. She married Oliver Phelps Anderson in 1882 and they had three children; Alice Woodruff (1882-1972), also a writer of short stories, Maurice Phelps (1888-1970), and Dorothy Louise (1893-1912).

While still in high school, she entered a story writing contest sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle at the urging of a friend and won second prize. In 1899, her husband began to produce photographic essays for magazine publication and asked Ada to write the accompanying copy. She began to produce short stories which were published in a variety of magazines, and she considered her best work during this period to be “The Man Who Knew Bonner” (Harper’s September 1902).

She drew upon her early teaching experience in her first novel, The Heart of the Red Firs (1908). Her second novel, The Strain of White (1909), is set in Washington Territory in the 1850s during the time of the treaty councils. The Rim of the Desert (1915) interwove settings in Alaska, Seattle, and Wenatchee, including the historical 1910 Wellington disaster, when an avalanche swept away two trains in the Cascade mountains.

She apparently ceased writing for publication afterward, lived on Bainbridge Island, and assisted with the family business, the Anderson Supply Company. She died March 23, 1956 in Port Blakely, Kitsap County.

Anderson, Oliver Phelps

Oliver Phelps Anderson was an early Seattle, Washington mapmaker, surveyor, photographer, and owner of a photographic supply business. Born in Lexington, Illinois in 1859, his family had moved to Oregon by 1869, where his father, Alexander Jay Anderson was Dean of the Academy at Pacific University in Forest Grove. He had an eclectic early education, studying bookkeeping, chemistry, and the pharmaceutical business, in Portland, Oregon. From 1878-1880, he attended the University of Washington, where by this time his father had been appointed President (1877-1882). He established a mapmaking business in Seattle and was an early adopter of the cyanotype photographic process to quickly produce maps and blueprints. He founded the Anderson Supply Company in his mapmaking offices in 1898 and it moved to 111 Cherry St in Seattle by 1899.

He married Ada Woodruff on January 4, 1881. He produced photographic essays for publication, one on Kwakiutl basketmakers of Vancouver Island, and at least two on scenic views of the Cascade mountains, and asked her to write accompanying descriptions. He died April 15, 1941 on Bainbridge Island

Anderson, Maurice Phelps

Maurice Phelps Anderson was the second child and the only son born to Ada and Oliver Anderson on June 9, 1888. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1910 with a degree in naval architecture. He kept a diary of his experiences in the US Army in WWI, where he served in optical supply procurement for the Ordinance Department. He wrote short stories and novels, possibly never published

He and a partner, Fred Norton Hallett, were granted a patent in 1926 for a lens system. He worked at the Anderson Supply Company, becoming president around 1913 and continuing in this role until the company closed in the late 1950s.

Anderson Supply Company

Anderson Supply Company was a photographic supply business in downtown Seattle. It was founded in 1899 by Oliver Phelps Anderson in his map-making offices and moved to 111 Cherry St in 1900. Along with photographic supplies and lenses, it sold scenic photographs of the Northwest. Both Ada Woodruff Anderson and their son Maurice Phelps Anderson were employed there in various capacities. Maurice took over as president in 1913 and remained throughout the existence of the business, which ended in the late 1950s.

McGrew, J. E.

J. E. McGrew is thought to be James E. McGrew, a Seattle attorney. He was born in Iowa in 1858 and had arrived in Seattle by 1892. His connection to the Anderson family is unknown.

Arthur J. Miller was a lifelong labor and civil rights advocate, born in San Diego but primarily active in the Puget Sound region after 1989. In 1967, he became involved in the anti-war movement and was allied with the Black Panther Party in the late ’60s. He made a career as a pipefitter in shipyards across the United States, joining the Industrial Workers of the World in 1970 at the suggestion of an I.W.W. member. His contributions in distributing radical leftist literature for the Panthers, and later his own publication Bayou La Rose, made him the target of disruption efforts of local and federal authorities. Arthur Miller passed in 2021.

Astoria Iron Works was a canning machinery company started in 1881 in Astoria, Oregon by John Fox. In 1906, he was joined in the venture by Nelson Troyer, formerly associated with the American Can Company at Astoria and Portland, Oregon. In 1913 the company opened a large factory in Seattle and became the Seattle-Astoria Iron Works. In 1928 the name changed to the Troyer-Fox Manufacturing Company and the company was bought by the Continental Can Company, Inc. In 1932, Troyer-Fox Manufacturing Company and the Continental Can Company, Inc. of Washington were both dissolved and their assets taken over by the Continental Can Company, Inc. of New York.

Aubrey F. Andrews (1906-1950) was a World War II veteran, librarian, and director of the Tacoma Public Library from 1946 to 1950. A native of Escanaba, Michigan, Andrews received a Bachelor of Arts in Library Science from the University of Washington in 1935 (1). He interned at the Joint Reference Library in Chicago, and after graduation held various library positions around the United States. He worked in the order department of the Oregon State College Library, was a Reference Assistant at the Technical Library in Knoxville, and a Community Librarian in Norris, Tennessee. He was later appointed as Chief of the Chattanooga, Tennessee Branch Technical Library, and in 1941 became Administrative Assistant at the Buffalo, NY Public Library. During World War II Mr. Andrews served in the Navy aboard the USS Hickox in the Pacific and kept a diary recording his experiences. He was discharged from the Navy at the conclusion of the war and appointed director of the Tacoma Public Library in 1946. One of his immediate major responsibilities was advocating for and planning a new main library building. In 1949 Aubrey Andrews was elected to a two-year term as president of the Washington Library Association. Andrews was also a member of the Tacoma Rotary Club, the Washington State Historical Society and the Tacoma Lodge No. 174 of the Elks. Aubrey Andrews died in Tacoma on November 8, 1950.

The Black Women's Caucus is a non-profit organization based in Washington state. The caucus was created at the State Women's Year Conference in July 1977. The organization's purpose is to "identify the barriers that prevent Black women from participating in mainstream society and to remove these barriers using their efforts, resources, and talents."

On January 7, 1978, a constitution governing the caucus was passed at a statewide meeting of Black women held in Seattle. Thelma Jackson of Olympia was elected as the first State President. The state organization was divided into four areas: the northwest, southwest, northeast, and southeast quadrants. Officers served for one year at the state level as well as the regional level. The activities of the caucus center on issues identified by Black women, then a work plan is created. This plan is updated and evaluated regularly to track progress.

The Black Women's Caucus sponsored the First Annual Black Summit Conference in Yakima in October 1978. In October 1979, the Second Summit Conference was held in Seattle. The third Annual Meeting was held in May 1980 in Seattle. Barbara Williams, the Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus, was the keynote speaker and workshop leader.

The caucus has been active in presenting cultural events important to African Americans' history, such as Juneteenth and Kwanzaa. Annually in June, the caucus has presented a luncheon with themes relevant to the African American community.

The Broadway Theatre District Taskforce was established 1989 to “create and oversee the vision” of the Broadway Theatre District Campaign. The Broadway Theatre District Campaign began in 1988 as an initiative by the Executive Council for the City of Tacoma in order to establish permanent, modern facilities within which the Tacoma Actors Guild could operate. Inspired by the Portland Performing Arts Center, the goal of the campaign was to provide physical space for Tacoma’s cultural development and to help “revitalize” the downtown area per the 1987 American Cities Plan for the Central business District of the City of Tacoma. The plans included expanding the Pantages Theatre to include the adjacent Jones Building and the renovation of the entryway of the Pantages Theatre into an art gallery. The Rialto Theatre, built in 1918, was renovated by 1991, and the campaign also worked directly with Pierce Transit to incorporate public transport into the district. The Theatre on the Square Building was newly constructed during the project for the purpose of housing the Tacoma Actor’s Guild.

Adam Byrd was born in Ohio in 1796. He and his wife had nine children. They relocated to Illinois first and then moved again to Richland County, Wisconsin where Adam operated a grist mill. In April 1852, the family acquired a team of oxen and embarked on a six month journey on the Oregon Trail. The family arrived in Vancouver, Oregon Territory. Adam continued on with Lieutenant A. Slaughter further north and selected a site at the head of Chamber Creek for a mill. Adam returned to move his family to the site in February of 1853. They stopped at Judge Thomas Chambers' mill on the way where Adam Byrd died on April 26, 1853. Adam's sons Andrew, Marion, and Preston constructed a grist mill and saw mill on the site their father had selected. George Byrd, the youngest son of Adam Byrd, attended the first school session held in Pierce County in 1854. In 1865 George married Mary Ellen White of Olympia who had crossed the Oregon Trail in 1851. George operated the mill until 1868. He later devoted the surrounding land to raising hops. In 1885, he represented Pierce County in the state legislature and served as Justice of the Peace in 1890. George and Mary Ellen had nine children. George was active in the Fern Hill area. He donated the land and financed the construction of the Methodist Episcopal Church and parsonage in Fern Hill and help establish school district number 23. He donated several lots and gave other incentives to encourage the street car to run through Fern Hill. He died June 17, 1915.

Byron “By” I. Larson was a geologist, city planner, and civil engineer in the Puget Sound area. Born in Tacoma in 1921 he attended Stadium Highschool in Tacoma, and the University of Idaho where he studied geology and mining engineering. He later started his own civil engineering company in Seattle and remained in the Seattle-Tacoma area until his death in 2008.

Cecil C. Cavanaugh (1902 - 1980) was a life-long resident of Tacoma. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1920. He served as President of Tacoma’s Young Men’s Business Association, the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce and the Tacoma Broadcasting Company, which worked to bring the radio station KTBI to the city. He was on the Board of Directors of the Lumberman’s Club and of the Camp Six Logging Museum at Point Defiance. He had an interest in promoting traffic safety and was active in St Patrick’s Catholic Church. Cavanaugh was an amateur historian of lumber operations in Tacoma. As part of this hobby, he built a collection of 600 historic photographs depicting logging, lumber milling and lumber shipping operations in Tacoma and Pierce County which he donated to the Washington State Historical Society.

Cavanaugh was founder and President of the Cavanaugh Lumber Company, which operated in Tacoma from 1930 to 1982. In its first 10 years his lumber company was destroyed by fire twice and severely damaged by Puyallup River flooding. Each time, Cavanaugh rebuilt. Tacoma’s growth and development necessitated two relocations of his business.

Cavanaugh’s relatives were active in the 10th (Steilacoom) Chapter of the Daughters of the Pioneers. Cavanaugh and his wife Mary Geiger Cavanaugh had two daughters, Cathleen Jarman and Mary Frances and two sons James and Lawrence.

C.E. (Charles) and Hattie King were photographers in Tacoma in the latter part of the 19th century. Charles King was hired by Northern Pacific in the 1870s to photograph land where the tracks were to be laid between Livingston, Montana and Tacoma. In the 1880s, Charles and Hattie were hired to photograph local churches, residences, and ships. Charles was known for being one of the earliest photographers to capture an image of Mount Rainier. Charles King would go on to serve as a Tacoma Police Captain.

In 1993, the Pierce County Council established the Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed Council. The Council produced the Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed Action Plan and brought together stakeholders from the private sector, and federal, state, and local governments. The Council hosts monthly public meetings and undertakes work to improve fish habitat and water quality.

The Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed extends from the town of Ruston on Commencement Bay south to DuPont, and east to Frederickson, covering about 149 square miles. Major lakes include American, Spanaway, Steilacoom, Gravelly, and Tule. Major streams are Chambers, Clover, Spanaway, Morey, Murray, Flett, Leach, Puget and Peach. Seven municipalities, three military installations, and one drainage district, as well as Pierce County, have jurisdiction concerning water quality. The cities are: Tacoma, Lakewood, Fircrest, University Place, Steilacoom, DuPont, and Ruston. In 2018, the watershed's population was approximately 409,843 or 2,751 people per square mile.

Joseph Chapin Bowen was born on April 25, 1900, in Columbus, Ohio to Charles Ambrose Bowen and Mabel Shattuck Hayes Chapin. (1) Chapin Bowen operated his photography studio Chapin Bowen Inc. for 25 years in Tacoma.(2) Bowen also worked as a freelance photographer for the Tacoma News Tribune for 12 years.(2) He came to Tacoma in August 1924 from Wenatchee, WA, where he also worked as a photographer.(3) Before living in Wenatchee, Bowen had traveled to most US states holding various jobs. (3) For example, he was also an engineer after taking courses at the University of Washington, Whitman College, and Montana School of Mines.(3) Previously Bowen was employed by the Great Northern Railroad at the Cascade tunnel as their chief electrician.(3) Chapin Bowen married Irma Saunders on December 22, 1925. (1) Together they had three daughters.(2) He was a lifelong member of Tacoma's Young Men's Business Club.(2) He passed away at age 56 on May 30, 1956, in Seattle, WA.(2)

The Children’s Industrial Home was founded by a group of Tacoma women in 1890. First organized as the Women’s Lend a Hand League, then renamed the Woman’s League in 1892, it was incorporated as the Children’s Industrial Home in 1908. According to records in this collection, the organization’s stated purpose was to “find orphan, destitute and ill-treated children, receive them into legal custody and care for them until they are placed into approved and suitable homes or legally adopted; and further, for the protection of children who have lost one or both parents.” In 1904, the organization acquired six acres of property, including an orchard and a three-story house suitable for 30 children. Soon a nursery building was added to care for children under three years old. Eventually, as many as 72 children at a time lived in the large home. Due to its size and location at the top of a hill, the building quickly became known in Tacoma as the Home on the Hill. From its beginnings, the Children’s Industrial Home was supported almost entirely by private citizens in Tacoma. When possible, parents of children in the Home provided funds to assist with their care. The Home on the Hill housed children between the ages of birth and 14 years old. In 1926, Mrs. Jessie Dyslin donated land and funds to establish the Jessie Dyslin Boys’ Ranch as a home for boys who were over age for the Home on the Hill. Around the same time, the Children's Industrial Home opened a Girl’s Club as a residence for girls of high school age who needed a home while finishing school. In 1944, a furnace explosion extensively damaged the Home on the Hill and the building was demolished. The nursery building was used as a temporary home until a new home was completed in 1950. In the mid-1990s, the Children’s Industrial Home was renamed Gateways for Youth and Families.

Christopher Petrich was born in Tacoma. He attended Bellarmine High School, Georgetown University, and the American University in Washington DC where he studied art, design, and art history. He also studied under fine art photographer Alan Ross. Petrich began his career at age sixteen as a Photographer and Lab Technician in the portrait studio of Bert Perler. In the early 1970s, he sold cameras at Barney Elliot's Camera Shop in downtown Tacoma. He was hired as a Photographer by the City of Tacoma where he worked with William Trueblood and Jerry Timmons to photograph city events. He worked on a number of aerial photography assignments in this role and performed darkroom lab processing for the City. He photographed notable Tacoma visitors including Leroy Ostransky, Jacques Cousteau, Bill Cosby, and Richard Nixon and he created visual documentation of the Hawthorne District which was removed during the construction of the Tacoma Dome. In 1985, Petrich and Jerry Timmons founded Image Market Studio on 6th Avenue. Over the course of his career, he was employed by the Weyerhaeuser Company, the Washington State Legislature, and Yuen Lui Studios. His work has been exhibited widely across Washington and shown in Colorado, California, and Vermont.

The Citizens’ Committee for Tacoma’s Future Development was created in November 1957 at the request of the City Council. The objective of the committee was to survey the six-year program (1958-1963) of civic improvements that had already been tentatively adopted by the City Council. These recommendations help the Council determine what will be on the municipal ballot in the upcoming election. Chairman at the time, Reno Odlin, explained in the 1957 report that, “it [the committee] was to determine and to recommend to the Council an order of priority and importance of the various projected outlined therein.”

The committee consisted of over 200 people, so it was divided into eleven subcommittees by the chairman with an overseeing executive committee. The subcommittees ranged in themes, and included street lighting, streets and bridges, sewers and drains, public buildings, off street parking, airports, golf courses, transit, urban renewal, finance, and publicity and promotion. The recommendations put forth were approved by the citizens of Tacoma in the spring 1958 election.

The Committee was re-activated in November 1962, with Roe Shaub as the chairman, to review to the civic improvement programs for 1963-1968. The subcommittees remained largely the same as before, removing golf courses and off street parking. The recommendations by this committee emphasized investing in public buildings like Tacoma Public Library and the Fire Department, and on improving streets and bridges.

The Committee was once again reconvened by Mayor Tollefson in November of 1965 to review the 1966-1971 Capital Improvements Program that was developed by the City Planning Commission. In the final report from the 1965 committee, Chairman L. Evert Landon commends the work of the nine subcommittees he appointed, in addition to explaining the legacy of the two previous committees, both which received Public Relations awards for their work. The committee endorses a slightly increased property tax and in the initiative by the Association of Washington Cities to “secure one-tenth of the estate sales tax revenue for cities.”

Della Gould Emmons (1890-1983) was a writer of historical fiction based in the Northwest. Her first novel, Sacajawea of the Shoshones (1943), was written from Sacajawea’s point of view and told the story of her life and participation in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Emmons invested ten years of research, travel, and correspondence with historians before its publication, and she included brief references at relevant chapter ends. She assisted with an adaptation of the book for Hollywood in 1953, as The Far Horizons, which starred Charlton Heston, Fred McMurray and Donna Reed. Nothing in Life is Free (1953) focused on the pioneer experience and the Puget Sound settlers who crossed the Cascade Mountains at Naches Pass. She next wrote the story of Leschi of the Nisquallies (1965), an account of his involvement in the Medicine Creek Treaty and ensuing Puget Sound War, his two trials for murder, and subsequent death by hanging. Her fourth book was a compilation of 12 plays, Northwest History in Action (1960). Lastly she wrote a biography of her oldest brother, titled Jay Gould’s Million Dollar Gems (1974), which served additionally as a memoir as she related their early upbringing together.

She was born in Glencoe, Minnesota August 12, 1890, where she spent her early life. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1912 and the following year she taught high school in Sisseton, South Dakota. Her tenure there culminated in the production of a musical and theatrical presentation at the local opera house as well as the nearby Sioux agency [1, 2, 3]. Her marriage to Allan Burdette Emmons (1887-1958), a train dispatcher, in 1913, led to their subsequent travel west along the railroad line as his job required. They lived in Seattle for nineteen years, and when her daughter’s fourth grade class at Green Lake School studied history, Emmons was motivated to write pageants for the students’ participation. The pageants were popular and restaged multiple times and Emmons was encouraged to submit radio plays to local stations where they were aired in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1936 her husband had been transferred to Tacoma and she was involved in civic life there for her remaining 47 years. She served on the Board of the Washington State Historical Society, was appointed Historian for the Fort Nisqually Restoration Council, and was adopted by the Lummi Nation in 1955. She gave talks and presentations at events and on the air, and received numerous awards. A plaque was placed in Point Defiance Park dedicating the rose arbor to her in 1981. She died in Tacoma at the age of 93, November 6, 1983, and was buried in Glencoe, Minnesota [5,6,7].

Eldred Newell Welch was born on July 24, 1872 in Cordon, Iowa to Rev. William M. and Mary Ann Welch. Although he did not spend much time in Pierce County, he often corresponded with his parents and other family members who lived in the Tacoma area until the 1940s. These letters contain information about everyday news and life in Tacoma, and regularly touch on subjects such as the weather, farm work, local church activities, politics, and various local area events. Eldred Welch lived for many years in Portland, Oregon, and died on January 13, 1947 in Orlando County, Florida.

Elsa Nessenson (1878-1969) was a playwright, actress, and director active in the Pacific Northwest. Born in Illinois in 1878 of German immigrant parents, her father died when she was a young child (1, 2). Her mother brought her and her older brother to Tacoma in 1896 when she accepted the position of Language Department head at the College of Puget Sound (2). Elsa graduated from Vassar in 1899 and taught English and German at Miss Round’s School in Brooklyn, New York. She gave dramatic readings and became a protégé of Heinrich Conried, then manager of the Metropolitan Opera House (3). She returned to Tacoma in 1914 and taught French at Stadium High School, where she was granted sabbatical time to travel in Europe and study at the Sorbonne. The Tacoma Drama League branch was formed in 1918 and she was a founding member. One of her plays, In the Secret Places, won an award and was reprinted in the November 1926 issue of Drama Magazine. She continued writing and performing up to and after her retirement from Stadium in 1946. She moved to Wesley Gardens, a retirement community in Des Moines, Washington, where she died in 1969 (2).

Erna Spannagel Tilley (1887-1982) was a supporter of the arts in Tacoma. She was born in South Dakota to a German immigrant father and Wisconsin-born mother. She and her four siblings moved with their parents to Spokane, Washington where she attended high school. After graduating from the University of Washington, she married Homer H Tilley (1884-1953) in 1911. He was employed by Metropolitan Insurance Company and transferred to Tacoma by 1917.

Their social circle included artists, writers, poets, and dramatists throughout Puget Sound. In later life, Erna Tilley profiled several of these artists in her books, ”A Gateway to Friendship” (1970) and “Remembrances of Five Notables” (1971). She helped organize the Tacoma branch of the Drama League of America in 1918, and was involved throughout its existence and transformation into the Tacoma Little Theatre. An active board member for 28 years, she chronicled it in “The History of the Tacoma Little Theatre” (1965).

In 1929 she was named Tacoma’s official hostess, authorized by the city council to run the Welcome Wagon, a job she held for at least ten years. She helped orient new residents to city resources and distributed sample goods from local businesses. In 1935, she served on the first board of the Tacoma Art Association which developed into the Tacoma Art Museum. She documented its beginnings in “Resume: Early History of Tacoma Art Association”. Later she was also a founding member of Allied Arts of Tacoma, receiving its Allied Arts Civic Award in 1969.

She worked as a real estate salesperson and was concerned about the course of Tacoma’s urban development. She was a board member of the Tacoma Municipal League and received their Distinguished Citizen Award in 1977. She died July 6, 1982 at the age of 94.

The Tilleys had two daughters; the first, Julia, was born in 1913. She lived with her parents until sometime after 1960 when she was institutionalized. She died in a nursing home in 1980.

Margaret Tilley was their second child, born in 1916. A 1933 graduate of Stadium High School, she attended the College of Puget Sound for two years, then transferred and graduated from the University of Washington in 1937. Her weekly letters to her mother began when she was employed at the Custodial School in Medical Lake, Washington for a year. She returned to Tacoma and served as an editor of the Tacoma News Tribune’s society page for two years. In 1941 she moved to San Francisco and resumed writing letters. By 1944 her job with the American Red Cross entailed service on troop transport trains, assisting wounded servicemen from the Pacific theater on their return to points east. She was attached to Army groups in China and Japan in WWII. She was on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of China when it was evacuated to Japan in 1949. She joined the Foreign Service in 1950 and served in Vienna, Damascus, London, Montevideo, Pretoria, Milan, and Bangkok. She maintained a correspondence with her mother during her years abroad. She retired in November 1972 and died in Tacoma on January 3, 1974, age 57.