PSU Magazine Winter 2005

Revered women-some famous, others unknown-will receive recognition in a new garden park on campus. How do you define "heroine"? Consider the story of Matsu Ito. Born in Japan in 1893, she was 18 when she agreed Lo marry a Japanese farmer living in Hood River. She sailed Lo the New World and li\'ed a simple life, helping her husband in their orchard, and bearing eight children. Dunng World War II , two of her sons serwd in the U.S. Army while Ito and the rest of the family were confined in Japanese internment camps. Although Ito attended only two years of school as a child, five of her children attended college. When she died in 1966, Ito was someone whom traditional history books have ignored. And that, says Johanna Brenner, Women's Studies Department chair, is exactly the point. "Matsu's story touched me," says Brenner. "She came as a picture bride and manied a Hood River farmer. She was a wife , like many pioneer or immigrant women, except that the family was imerned during the war. Just in that thumb– nail sketch of her life, is a history of most of the women in her commu– nity. But when you read her story, you're brought in a personal way, LO 12 PSU MAGAZINE Wl NTER 2005 By Melissa Steineger those women, and yet you would never have heard of her." Never, except for PSU's planned Walk of the Heroines, an idea Brenner and others have nurtured for six years. Groundbreaking is scheduled for this spring. he Walk of the Heroines will fill the block in front of Hoffmann Hall with a garden of flower beds, artwork, and low, curved walls bearing the names of heroines-as defined by those who submit their names. For $200, individuals or groups can have a heroine's name engraved on one of the walls lining the walk. Larger sums allow contributors LO honor a heroine with a bench or tree. Heroines may be living or deceased. They can be mothers, sisters, inspirational mentors, or others-the definition is up to the submiuer. Stories and photographs of the honored women will be placed on a Web site, which can be accessed from anywhere, including the walk's computer kiosk. "We wanted this LO be a signature place in the city," says Brenner. "Like Keller Fountain or the Japanese Memo– rial. A beautiful, welcoming place where people would wanL Lo come. Where kids could stick their feet in a fountain. An important place, not something tucked away somewhere." O cher women slated to be honored on the walk follow a more traditional history book storyline than Matsu Ito. Like Maurine Neuberger, the first woman from Oregon and the third in the United States elected to the U.S. Senate. Neuberger's political career began in Oregon. A high school teacher, she married Richard L. Neuberger in 1945. Her husband's political ambitions car– ried him LO the Oregon Senate in 1946, and when Maurine complained about the slow pace of political change, Richard encouraged her to run for office herself. She did , ser\'ing three terms in the Oregon House. There, she became famous for pulling out a mixing bowl on the House floor and demonstrating to her male colleagues the amounL of work housewives undertook Lo mix yellow food coloring into the bone-white The family of Matsu Ito, early settlers of Hood River, are honoring her memory on the Walk of the Heroines.