PSU Magazine Winter 1993

''I n 1849 there was great excitement about the discovery of gold in Califor– nia and nearly everybody had what was called the gold feaver, my husband with the rest, and I soon discovered by their evening chat as we sat about the fire, that he was making plans to go to California. At that time I was in very feeble health, having an ailing infant six weeks old. I knew it was impossible for me to go with them. (My uncle, Mr. Summer Barker of Maine, and Mr. Edward Copeland of Massachusetts, were to be partners with my husband). I listened to their plans which they had gotten pretty well formulated, when I thought it was time for me to take some interest in affairs, and so put the ques– tion, 'what do you propose to do with me,' 'Send you to your mother until I return,' was his answer, which did not meet with my approval, but I made no answer at that time. I was very fond of my husband and was nearly broken-hearted at the thought of the separation. It was get– ting late in February and if they went to California they would have to start by the tenth of March , and it had to be finally settled. This was the way it was done. I said, 'We were married to live together,' (he say ing 'Yes') , 'and I am willing to go with you to any part of God's Foot Stool where you think you can do the best, and under these cir– cumstances you have no right to go where I cannot, and if you do, you need never return fo r I shall look upon you as dead.' He answered, 'Well, if that is the way you feel about it I will not go.' Mind you,- no word of this was sa id in anger, for we had never differed in our two years of married life, and so it was settled that we should go the next ' ' year to the California Gold Mines. - from Pioneer Days , by Mary Jane Hayden, a reminiscence written in 1915, 65 years after she arrived in Oregon (original spelling and punctua– tion retained) . 22 PSU Koehler's own Oregon story The diaries project is only the latest of an eclectic array of work this 67-year-old Oregon native has been involved with. A World War II, "Rosie the Riveter" type, Vancouver shipyard worker, Koehler's story was told in Fleeting Opportunities, by Amy Kesselman: a book about local women shipyard workers (State University of New York Press). Her pursuit of a bachelor's degree stretched from 1942 to 1974, through five different colleges. And after spending nearly nine years in a weekly writing and critique class, Koehler has-within the last two years-had two pieces relating to the state's history published in Oregon periodicals. One of them is an account fea– tured in the fall 1990 edition of the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Called "Reminiscence," it is Koehler's story about working in the Vancouver shipyards. She was only 18 when she applied for the job of electrical helper at the Kaiser Vancouver Shipyards in 1943, and she says she might not have had the nerve to do it without her girlfriend along. A photograph taken during Koehler's stint in the shipyards shows Pat Cain (Koehler), looking 40s-glamorous in a pigskin jacket and workclothes, dark hair cascad– ing from a Joan Crawford hairstyle, lined up with the electrical crew of 15 men and 14 women. The motivation for many of the women entering war industries in 1943 was to help the war effort. For Koehler, there was an additionale nticement: The promise of good union wages offered a way to save for her college education. Despite the cold, the fatigue and the dirt, it was an exciting new world that Koehler stepped into. In "Reminiscence," she remembers: "...we made the rounds of (the) machine shop, casting forge, rigging shop, feeling glamorous and impor– tant, even in our drab clothes. The yard could seem like a movie-studio lot, the huge lofts like sound stages all abustle.. .lt was a world of strangers who did not step aside for teenage girls. Coming from outside the Northwest, as many of them did, they spoke in accents we had never heard before. It became a game with us to listen and ask point of origin. Soon we could distinguish between a Brooklyn accent and one from New Jersey, Florida, or Oklahoma." Before the war ended, Koehler would make journeyman grade in her electrician's career. But the women were released to make room for returning servicemen. Not that Koehler cared; she says she hadn't planned on making a lifetime pur– suit of shipbuilding, anyway. She began her second year of col– lege at the University of Oregon, where she met her future husband, Frank Koehler, Jr., in a political science class. They married, and Frank became an insurance broker. Pat, like many women of that time, dropped out of school to begin a family that would eventually num– ber four children. For nearly 20 years after Koehler left school at the end of World War II, she gave little thought to finish– ing her work in political science. Kimberly, the oldest of the Koehler children, graduated from high school in Portland and enrolled at Portland State University. Her daughter, Koehler says, "lured me back to school by telling me there was a good art history class..." Kimberly and Pat Koehler graduated together from Portland State in 1974: the daughter with a BA in English; the mother in political science. D