Norma Paulus SR 9065, Oral History, by Linda S

Norma Paulus SR 9065, Oral History, by Linda S. Brody

1982 January 14

PAULUS: Norma Paulus LB: Linda S. Brody (now Linda S. Dodds) Transcribed by: Phyllis Soderlund; Lillian Strong. Audit/edit by: Michele Kribs, 2020

Tape 1, Side 1 1982 January 14

LB: Mrs. Paulus, can you tell me why your family left Nebraska and came to Oregon?

PAULUS: Well my father was a farmer, part of a German farming community in Nebraska. As I understand it from my older sister, he was the victim of the Depression, the dustbowl days. I remember my mother saying once that she'd wake up in the middle of the night and my father would be pacing. Finally, she asked what he was going to do and he said, "Well, I think we ought to leave here." So, he really left because of the collapse of the farming industry.

LB: He was having difficulty with his farm?

PAULUS: That’s right.

LB: What kind of setting were you living in when you were in Nebraska?

PAULUS: Right. Well, I really don't remember anything about it. My sister and two older brothers have told me when they were young and growing up there (let’s see. they would have been teenagers when we left there) as they were growing up; it was kind of a

The Oregon Historical Society allows use of this Oral History Interview according to the following license: Creative Commons - Attribution, Non-Commercial, ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ Paulus SR 9065 prosperous farm. They certainly weren't as poor as we were when I was growing up. But I don't remember anything about it.

LB: Why do you think your father decided to move to Oregon, or to move your family to Oregon?

PAULUS: I think it was just part of the general exodus from the Midwest. I don't remember that we spent time in Idaho but my sister tells me that he had a covered truck, I guess you'd call it a van now, and in it he put the three older ones and I can't remember whether it was a goat or a lamb. I think it was a lamb or a dog. I have a vague recollection of some kind of a dog. He just started seeking his fortune someplace else. She tells me that we stopped in Idaho in a very remote mountain logging town where she and my brothers and fathers spent winter hauling – I want to say lodgepole pine, that's what came to me when she described it. So, we did spend a winter there. My first recollection is being in a hopyard picking hops in the valley. We were in the Eugene area. My second one is being taken into the Willamette River with my sister and my brothers. So, we were in Eugene, I don't know how long. It couldn't have been very long because I know we moved to Burns in 1938 which would have made me five.

LB: Was your family picking hops then for family income?

PAULUS: Right. Right. I remember. I used to laugh when I was in the Legislature with Portland liberals like Vera Katz who's my dear respected friend. [She] used to talk about migrant workers and I used to tell her that I was a migrant worker. I can remember the first time I saw a flush toilet was in some kind of a migrant camp where we were.

LB: I was just going to ask you if you had lived in a camp.

PAULUS: No. We lived in a tent. I have very hazy recollections of that.

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LB: I take it your family being so mobile must have had few possessions.

PAULUS: Yes. I know that when we lived in Burns when I was growing up, there was an oak dining table, and an oak chest of drawers, and a few things like that that my mother must have transported with her all the time. But I can't remember much about that.

LB: So, then your family permanently located in Burns in 1938?

PAULUS: Yes. I don't know how this came about. My sisters told me, which I didn't realize until about five or six years ago, that somehow, he [dad] was in real estate — connected in the real estate business in Eugene. Then he met this man who was a veterinarian — Doctor Atwood was his name. He convinced my father to come to outside of Burns to live in this oil rig and that we were going to strike oil. So that's why we moved to Burns.

LB: You actually lived in the oil rig?

PAULUS: Yes. We lived [there]. It's still standing. It's a wooden structure and last year when I flew in to the bottom of the Steens Mountain to check on some state land board land business, we flew over it and it's still visible. It's a wooden derrick and it's north of Wrights Point which is south of Burns. It's between Burns and Wrights Point. We moved out there and there were two shacks. I think there was running water in one with a bunkhouse where I lived with my two brothers and my sister. I'm trying to remember. Paul is only 18 months younger than I am so he was there too. But he was the baby. We had a huge cookstove, I remember, in that. My oldest brother still has that cookstove. The derrick and the wooden buildings that housed that machinery to run it are still there.

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I don't know about the two shacks. I remember playing in the sand and watching out for scorpions with my brother.

LB: Who owned the derrick?

PAULUS: Well, it was called the Harney County Development Company and I really don't know who owned it. John [Thay?] was a very nice prosperous rancher and I think that he probably had the money behind it.

LB: So was your father a groundkeeper, or…

PAULUS: He was just running the oil rig. I mean, drilling for oil.

LB: Did he have any money invested in the company?

PAULUS: No. Because he didn't have any money. But I'm sure that's what it was — if he would run it and drill for oil that that would be his share of the profits, which of course there never were any. My oldest brother, who still lives in Burns — Harold — I can remember he and my other brother, Gale, who lives in The Dalles, used to climb to the top of the derrick. I was never allowed to do that because it was too high and it was just a wooden ladder up. I suppose it was 100 feet up. It seemed enormous to me at the time. They used to climb up and shoot jackrabbits. At that time there was a bounty on jackrabbits. We always had this huge sack of jackrabbit ears. Then when they went into town, they'd get a nickel a pair of ears.

LB: Did you have any livestock at all or grow anything in a garden?

PAULUS: No. You just can't. It's just nothing but sand and alkali — it's just a desert. I can remember being taken down to the slough by my brothers in the wintertime when it

Paulus SR 9065 would freeze over and watching them place ice hockey — their version of it. Also, setting snares for rabbits in the trails.

LB: Did you eat the rabbits?

PAULUS: Yes. Well, really, until I was old enough to support myself, which was about 15 or 16, we lived on venison. I didn't know it was called venison until I moved to the [Willamette] Valley. It was called deer meat.

LB: Did your mother work at all or do anything for income?

PAULUS: We finally moved to town because it was impossible to get me and my brother to school. The other thing I remember is my first year of school in grade school. My father worked as a bricklayer in the federal post office, which is still there and used. I assume that he'd gone to work in town because the oil well wasn't coming through. So, he worked as a laborer when they were building the federal post office there. That's how I would go into school is with him. I can remember, every morning it was just so traumatic if we left early enough – I mean in the wintertime we could get through because the ruts were frozen and you could drive through. But in the spring, it was just awful. I think that's what finally made us move into town; so, my brother and I could go to school. The school would have been about 20 miles away.

LB: Did you children contribute to the family income at all?

PAULUS: Well, we did after my father died. The other interesting thing, and I've got to talk to my sister about this sometime: I could read, but I don't know how I could read because we didn't have books or magazines. But I can remember when I went to school, I could read and I was skipped a grade. That's always puzzled me because the only written

Paulus SR 9065 material we really had in the house were some geology books that my father had. So that's always been a curious fact.

LB: You said your parents moved into town so you could attend school. Did they value education? Or did they think it was necessary?

PAULUS: Well, they weren't educated themselves. I can't remember how — I don't think my father graduated from grade school but he was very bright. When I was little my mother spoke German better than she did English. In this German community they spoke German in the church and German at home. — Well, they must have. I know they wanted very much to have my older brothers and sisters graduated from high school, which they had not done. They thought at that time that was an achievement.

LB: Were you parents immigrants?

PAULUS: No. Second generation. My father served in the First World War in Germany.

LB: What did your family do for fun?

PAULUS: When we lived at the derrick — I don't remember much about it except my little brother and me playing like kids do in the sand with trucks and things. When we were older and lived in town we used to go to movies. But that was a very big event because we simply didn't have any money. We played cards. I can remember in the summertime going to picnics, but not much.

LB: Who were your heroes when you were a child?

PAULUS: I don't know that I had any. When we moved into town, the first place we lived – I can remember the day that my oldest brother, who worked at the bowling alley

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brought home a radio. I can remember how impressed I was and the neighbors came in to look at it because we just didn't have anything. The radio was tallish, you know, with a speaker. If had the fabric down the front of it and was made out of wood: mahogany. It had push buttons on it, which we just thought was wonderful. I'd never seen anything like that before. I remember asking why there was a blank space in it which couldn't have been more than six inches by three inches in the cabinet. I do distinctly remember asking my older brother what that was for and he told me that someday they could put in a television. I didn't think about that until later, but obviously they were talking about it then. My sister is 10 years older than I am and my other brother is 12. Then after we moved to Burns there were two more children added to the family. My youngest sister, who lives in Portland is 13 years younger than I am. So they were much, much older than I.

LB: There were seven of you then?

PAULUS: Yes. But I do remember the only real entertainment is that I used to listen to the radio with my father. [I] knew all the old radio shows and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

LB: It must have been quite an occurrence for something like that — to be able to bring in that kind of hookup with the rest of the world into Burns, rather an isolated area.

PAULUS: Yes.

LB: What kinds of activities did you participate in during high school?

PAULUS: Everything. As a matter of fact, when I got to be a senior I only went to school half-time practically, because I was the editor of the annual; I was a cheerleader; I was a drum majorette; I was president of the senior class; I was in plays that we put on; I raised money from the business community for ads in the annual; I sold tickets; I planned and decorated for all the dances.

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LB: Amazing.

PAULUS: That was when I was a junior and senior. My freshman and sophomore years were very awkward for me because I was so much younger and under developed. I was four foot eleven and weighed 87 pounds.

LB: And how old were you?

PAULUS: Oh, I also was a gymnast. When I started in gymnastics I started to grow very suddenly. But my freshman and sophomore years were very difficult as I remember because I was so much younger.

LB: How old were you?

PAULUS: I was a year-and-a-half younger than my classmates, which at that development stage you know -

LB: How was your scholarship?

PAULUS: Oh, I was a very good student and it was very easy for me. I remember when I was skipped a grade. My first-grade teacher just died last year and she was in a nursing home here for years. I used to go see her. But when I was put into the second grade I remember one day Mrs. Agnes Stallard, who is still alive — I see her every once in a while down in Corvallis she'd ask questions and I was always raising my hand and she said, "Oh, Norma, get your lunch sack." So, I did and I was plopped into this other room. No one ever explained to me or my parents what was happening to me. I thought I was being punished but what I was doing she just couldn't deal with anymore so just stuck me in the third grade one day.

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When I got to be in the eighth grade, the principal, Henry Slater, who was a one- armed man who just died last year, too — he'd always been one of my stalwart supporters over there. [He] call me and another girl, Helen MacDonald, in one day. She, and I, and Patsy Wiess were the really smart ones. He called Helen and me in and said that we were going to work in the library instead of staying in class all day. I know now that it was his way of recognizing that we had very high IQ's and he was trying to find some way to instill reading into us. The first book I ever read was Lorna Doone. But the teachers decided that that was one way they could keep us out of trouble and get us steered in the right direction. He used to have me work in the office filing things. That's when I looked up my score on the achievement test. We went from the first to the eighth grade. When I went into high school, I was just a fish out of water because I was so much smaller. Everybody else had girlfriends and wore brassieres and I didn't. I had a really awkward first two years in high school. I remember getting involved with the more unsavory, undisciplined element of our school. The coach happened to see my father one day, which was very rare because my parents did not go to the school. They were not involved because they were so poor, they were not one of those included in the parent-teacher relationship of schools. But somehow my father – I had an older brother that was playing softball or something. My older brothers had alerted my father of the fact that I was running around with this girl who was an evil companion. But, of course, the day that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor my two brothers — I can remember that like it was yesterday — left for the navy. They just signed up. My sister, by that time was married. She was married when she was 16. She's been married to the same man all these years. So, during that period of my life, I was the oldest one at home, which I think also had some bearing on my aggressiveness. You know, the eldest child-it was just like two separate families.

LB: When did you have your first paying job?

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PAULUS: During the Second World War when we lived in this terrible house which when we moved out of it was just a tinder box that burned up and burned two children in it. When we lived there my mother did a variety of things. My mother took in washings. She washed the jackets for the dentists, and the doctors, and did the office laundry. And she kind of looked after the old people in the neighborhood, would do their wallpapering. My first paying job was kind of as an errand girl for the old people that lived in this house next to us. There was a terrible old woman that ran a nursing home — what we call a nursing home now. She just had a house that was about as big as this room and had four bedridden people in it that she was supposedly caring for. She couldn't see herself and I know my mother used to worry about that. These old people were relatives of ranchers. My mother would watch for the pickups to come in on a monthly basis and worry about these old people. She used to send me down there and they would send me on little errands when their keeper wasn't around. I would go down and buy bananas and things that she wouldn't give them. Then I used to give permanents. I'd get a dollar or two to give permanents to old people. I must have been 15 when I went to work for a man and woman that had moved from Nevada and opened a dress shop. I worked in the dress shop after school and on Saturdays.

LB: Did you have any aspirations about what you wanted to do or be?

PAULUS: Well, the only thing I can really remember wanting to be is a professional dancer. Then I was engaged to be married. [l] started going with this fellow who was – his family owned a drug store there. They were very wealthy by our standards, very wealthy. I went with him for five years and then when I graduated from high school, I had scholarship offers and everything. It's hard to describe to people if you're really bright, and you know you are, and you have offers of scholarships, how you can be so poor that you can't take advantage of them. Well, that was my circumstance.

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The District Attorney of Harney County was losing his secretary and went to the school and asked the teachers to recommend someone. They said "We've got this really smart girl over here, not too good at typing or anything but she's really smart. She should go to college but she can't, so maybe this would be a good thing for her." And that was really good for me.

LB: When did you start with the District Attorney then?

PAULUS: I started in the spring while I was still a senior. I'd go over after school was out and the teachers let me out early. I really started while I was still a senior in high school. I was 17- So when I was 17 — I can't remember how much money I was making but the county paid me — I think it was $225 a month — and then the District Attorney had a private practice and I think he paid me $25 a month But that was really big money. That was more money than my father had earned on a consistent basis for all the time I was growing up.

LB: He was still alive at that time, wasn't he?

PAULUS: He died when I was 17- He would have died not too long after I went to work.

LB: Where were you living? Were you still at home?

PAULUS: I was living at home.

LB: How did you take to your job with the law?

PAULUS: Oh, I loved it. It was fascinating because — The other thing that I think is significant is when I was in high school. I had five teachers that were Phi Beta Kappa's. In Burns, that's quite extraordinary. Most of them, as I look back on it, probably shouldn't have

Paulus SR 9065 been teaching in a high school. They really should have been teaching in a college. But they were kind of weird personalities and obviously that's why they ended up in Burns.

LB: Well, it was the Depression, too, I think.

PAULUS: Yes. But I had Latin in high school and I loved it and I was an excellent student. That gave me such a boost in this job because all of the legal terms have a Latin root.

[End of Tape 1, Side 1]

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Tape 1, Side 2 1982 January 14

LB: You were saying that you enjoyed the law partly because of your Latin. Who were you working for at that time?

PAULUS: The district attorney's name was [Leland Duncan?] and he came from a rather prominent Valley family. He was a bachelor. The job was just wonderful for me because district attorneys in small counties could not only take care of all the county business and the criminal business, but they were allowed to have a private practice. So, everything that the state police did went through the justice of peace courts and I was the secretary for that. It was right next door. Every time the circuit judge, who was Judge Allen Biggs, came to town I acted as the gofer for the jury and the selection of the jury and the bailiff. I sat in on every hearing and trial whether it was criminal or civil. When the federal judge came to our county to hear water rights cases I sat in on all of those. On the weekends when there was an occasional runaway girl, I acted as the matron of the jail and took the girls their food and listened to their problems. When there were insanity hearings I went with [Mr. Duncan?] to the hospital, took notes on that. When there was an autopsy, I went with him to the funeral home to take notes on the autopsies and then, of course, got involved with his civil practice and probate work. So really, I knew the procedural aspects of probating an estate from when I was 19. But because of the unique situation, I really had a wealth of experience in the procedural aspects of the law — both civilly and criminally. It was just a very extraordinary circumstance and I was an eager listener and learner. [Mr. Duncan?] always had time to answer my questions. I think he must have sensed that I had an intellectual capacity beyond the normal girl of 19 because he did everything, he could to answer my questions. When he died, his estate was probated by [Bryan Goodenough?], a lawyer here in Salem. That meant that I was hired by the estate to probate the estates, Mr. [Duncan?] was closing at the time of his death. His estate couldn't be closed until his legal work was

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finished. So, I came to Salem about once a month by myself to report on what was happening with his private business. In the meantime, James M. Burns, who is now a federal district court judge in Portland, was appointed by the governor to be the new district attorney. He and his beautiful wife, Helen, moved to Burns and that just opened up all kinds of new doors and horizons for me. I think I mentioned that Judge Burns still tells his friends that when he walked into the Harney County District Attorney's office, he was nonplussed to find a young blonde secretary reading the New Yorker because his predecessor had subscribed to the New Yorker and that opened up all kinds of vistas for me. In fact, on my wall over there are two cartoons from the New Yorker — my favorite. But, at any rate, I did get just this unbelievable background in the practical aspects of both civil and criminal law.

LB: Then you mentioned you had an opportunity with Tony Yturri.

PAULUS: Yes. Tony Yturri, who is now the chairman of the Department of Transportation, was at that time a lawyer in Ontario. I knew him as I did know all the lawyers in Eastern Oregon because at one time or another, they did business with the Circuit Court in Burns. When Mr. [Duncan?] died, Tony, then Mr. Yturri, called and asked me to come over and be his secretary. But just something told me that my future was in the west of Oregon — not in the east. Then my engagement, long standing engagement. I started going with this fellow when I was fifteen and we were engaged to be married. [It] went sour; he sent me a "Dear John" letter largely, I think, because his mother didn't think I was good enough for him because we were definitely from the wrong side of the tracks by their standards, they were very affluent. That was very crushing because I thought, "Gosh, here I am." I think I must have been about 20 and I've given the best years of my life to his man and now he's dumped me. "What am I going to do?" Another girl, a Basque girl, [Rosie Garatea?] had just had a romance go sour on her. She and I decided that we would move to Salem and seek our fortunes. That was largely

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because [Bryan?] Goodenough had told me if I ever wanted to move to Salem that he could get me a job in a minute. I had many job opportunities when I got here and I decided to go to work for two lawyers in the Pioneer Trust Building. Rosie and I lived in an upstairs apartment in a little old house that Mr. Goodenough owned where the present law school now sits. We worked hard for a year. We didn't know anyone in town except the [Goodenough’s?] and the people for whom Rosie worked — Master Service Station people. I spent most of that first year going back to Burns. And that was really because I was the one that had the automobile and Rosie was reconstructing her romance with this Burns fellow. So, we would get off work on 5:00 on Friday, get in my car and drive straight through to Burns, and then drive back Sunday. I was telling our son the other day when we were almost trapped in a snowstorm on the Santiam [Pass] that I'd been traveling that pass all my life. Looking back on it, I remember traveling it late at night all by myself so many times and that I'd been in worse circumstances up there by myself without chains. But, at any rate, she decided that she'd return to Burns and get married and that kind of left me adrift here in Salem because I knew absolutely no one. We would work and then go home to Burns so we really hadn't established any relationships here in the Valley except for the few that I had at the Pioneer Trust Company through my job.

LB: I think I was going to go back and ask you at this point — You mentioned having polio. Could we recapitulate that?

PAULUS: Yes. I did have polio when I was 19. I was the 27th one, I think, in our community to fall victim to it. When you have 27 people out of 3,000 in a county you can imagine what an affect it had on the community. The hospitals in Portland were filled because it was a major epidemic. They had opened up one floor of the Holladay Hospital. At the time I didn't realize that it was a mental hospital, but that's what it was then. I was hospitalized there. I was driven to the hospital by my finance's mother and my older sister,

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Polly. They took the back seat out of their big Chrysler and made it into a bed and drove me from Burns to the hospital in Portland because there wasn't an ambulance. The ambulance was taking people to Ontario. So that's how I was transported.

LB: What did your treatment involve?

PAULUS: Well, I remember when I was taken into the hospital and I was put in an isolated room. What little I had brought with me was taken away, I suppose, because they were trying to make it germ-free. I was interrupted all night long [by people] asking me to wiggle my toes and everything. I suppose they were trying to see the extent of the paralysis. It was really in my arms more than my legs. Then I was put into a room with two other women, one whose legs were paralyzed but arms were all right. She was older than I was. And then a woman, a mother, that was on one of those moving beds, that was completely paralyzed except for her head. She'd had a tracheotomy and when the bed would go down, she could speak. It was an interesting period of my life. I don't talk about it much because, obviously, you'd never know I had polio to look at me. I think there were several reasons why I came out of it as well as I did. Number one, I'd been a gymnast in high school so my muscles were in really good condition Secondly, I think it was an attitude. When I was diagnosed in Burns as having had polio, I asked the doctor quickly what he thought it would be. He said, "Oh, I'm sure it's going to be a very light case." I had such a terrible headache that that's all I could think of. I really think that my whole attitude when I was in the hospital helped a lot because I never once thought that I was going to end up paralyzed. I always thought it was just an ordeal that I'd have to weather, but that I would not be permanently limited. I was given a prescribed set of exercises which I did religiously morning and night for two years. I slept on a board. I think the fact that my muscles were in very good condition and my attitude toward it, and the fact that I did the exercises without fail for two years — all kinds of them.

LB: Now how old were you when you first contract polio?

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PAULUS: I was 19…

LB: Nineteen. So, you were still doing your exercises when you moved to Salem?

PAULUS: Yes. And Rosie, when I would try to cheat, Rosie — my roommate would force me to do them.

LB: So when you came to Salem then you were working for [Mr. Goodenough?]?

PAULUS: No. I worked for two lawyers in his same building. Then Rosie left me and I was on my own. I became acquainted with the people that started Pentacle Theatre which was really the way in which I got involved in this community. Then one day [Bryan Goodenough?] came to me and said, "There is an opening for a legal secretary in the supreme court and you really ought to go and apply because those jobs are the best in the business." You see, [Bryan Goodenough?] has played quite a role in my life. I found out that the judge was Earl Latourette, "Sap" Latourette as he was known by his cronies. When I went to apply, I remember I spent all, oh, to midnight with my girlfriends making sure I had the right hat, and the right gloves, and the right dress. And I had all these pat answers because everybody that worked up there was very old. The judges were all old and the secretaries were all old because the jobs were so good, they came and stayed. For instance, when I went to work there, Judge Rossman's secretary was [Pearl Benkhardt?]. I found out a long time later that [Pearl Benkhardt?] had gone to work for Judge George Rossman when my husband's mother was pregnant with him and she was Judge Rossman's legal secretary. She took a leave of absence to have him because it was unseemly for a woman in those days to be that obviously pregnant in the public sector. Well, Pearl came to work for six months while Olga Gray Paulus had Bill Gray — Billy Gray, but she never went back. When I went to work later and met my husband in law school as

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a legal secretary to the chief justice, [Pearl Benkhardt?] was still there. She was finally forced to retire and she went to work for my husband when he opened his law office. But, at any rate, I remember going to see Judge Latourette and in his great big office and this dapper man. I was to find out later he was married to a very young, beautiful second wife, Eleanor, a lovely lady about half his age. Anyway, I walked in the door and he said, "Well, kiddo, tell me about yourself." So, I told him all these things and he said, "Well, you're awfully young." And I said, “Youth is considered to be an asset sir.” And then he said, “I understand you want this job and you want a job.” And I said, “No I don’t want a job, I want this job!” After a few minutes he said, “Alright, I think ‘ll hire you. Come to work here in two weeks.” That was in September. Well, it was just the most exciting thing that happened to me. He told me later that the reason he had hired me was because I had good looking legs. At any rate, I just worshipped him, and it was a wonderful year that I worked for him. He died. He’s the one that encouraged me to go to law school. Then Judge William McCallister was appointed and he kept me on. I told Judge McCallister that I had had this arrangement with Judge Latourette to try to get into law school. And Judge McCallister said that he didn’t think that I would be admitted, but if I could, that of course it would be fine because I didn’t start work till nine. So, I marched myself over to the law school, which was right across the street. I must admit to you that I don’t think I had a burning desire to be a lawyer. That wasn’t my motivation. I felt terribly inadequate because I had not been to college and I was really suffering from that. That was the first year that the Supreme Court hired law clerks. They were mostly from the east, very urbane men. Let’s see, Bob Packwood, um, Jim Ellis, Leon Gabinet, Bob Harrington, Meir Eisenberg1, who's currently the head of the Jewish Defense League. Oh, and George Van Hoomissen.

LB: They were in your class?

1 At the time of Paulis’ interview in 1981, the leader of the Jewish defense League was Meir Kahane. 18

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PAULUS: No, no.

LB: Or, were they the law clerks?

PAULUS: They were the first law clerks. It’s interesting how so many of them – how we played a part with each other's political lives. But any rate, I suffered from an enormous inferiority complex and at that time I felt like – Well, you know find a way to put myself through college, but it just wasn't enough. I really went to law school because I thought that would be something extra-ordinary if I could get into law school. So. I went over to the law school and talked with Dean, [Seward Reese?]. And he kind of looked at me and told me that they did have a special student status, that one other person had availed them self of. By this time, I was going with law students, too. So, I knew of this man who had served three terms in the Legislature and had never been to college, but they had allowed him to enter.

LB: Who was that?

PAULUS: His brother was John Day, of Medford, and his name was Ben Day.

LB: Ben Day?

PAULUS: Ben Day. He had children in college at the time. I became acquainted with him because I was going with law clerks and law students. So, I walked over there and the dean then told me that I had to be 24. So, the day that I was 24 — I waited — The day that I was 24 I marched myself back over there and said, "Here I am. I’m 24 years old today."

LB: How long did you have to wait?

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PAULUS: Well, I must have done that when I was 23. It must have been almost a year. He told me that I could take two classes. And I had to take what was offered at 8:00 because my job started at 9:00, as I said. So, he let me take legal research of writing and criminal law. That was just the most exciting thing in the whole world. I could hardly contain myself. Oh, in the meantime, I should tell you that through my Pentacle Theatre involvement I had by that time moved in where — I had not moved in with them yet, but with the Laue's, Sheila and Al Laue. Al was starting law school at the same time. He was a- very brilliant fellow. So, I would go to school at 8:00 in the morning and then I'd go to work at 9:00. I was also told that if I got really good grades then maybe I could take something the next semester. So, I did get good grades. I got an A in criminal law and I can't remember what I got in legal research of writing. The next semester I went back and I took what they had at 8:00 then. I did that until — Which meant that I was taking third year courses before I'd finished the first year. By that time, I had met my husband — I'd met Bill and I was living with the Laue’s and their soon- to-be seven children in a house that is now where the [Salem] Chamber of Commerce parking lot is. That was really an exciting year, too, because all the Pentacle Theatre people were in and out and all the law students, and all the law clerks. So, if there was an intellectual Algonquian roundtable in Salem, it was that. I would say that it was Oregon's, or Salem's, first commune. That's kind of what the atmosphere was.

LB: Were the Pentacle Theatre group, were they an acting group?

PAULUS: Yes. They're still going.

LB: And you were active in that?

PAULUS: Yes. Very.

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LB: What sort of productions did you produce, or did you produce?

PAULUS: Well, I worked. I was the secretary to the Pentacle Theatre and I shoveled the first loads of sawdust in the barn that we first had. We now have a building out there. Then I appeared in... Oh, the first play that I saw was "Blithe Spirit." The first play outside of a high school play was "Blithe Spirit." Oh, I thought that was just wonderful. I went every night. Then I appeared as Marie in "Come Back Little Sheba." Then I appeared as Madam somebody in — Oh, what was the name of it? I can't remember what the name of the play was. Anyway, I wasn't very good. It was a very exciting time in my life. Then came the day when I went to sign up for 8:00 classes and there wasn't anything I hadn't taken. So, I went across the street and asked Judge McAllister who was then the chief justice, if I could take my lunch hour from 11:00 to 12:00 instead of 12:00 to 1:00 so I could take 11:00 courses. He said, "Yes." His son, I think by that time was in law school, so he allowed me to do that and I got really good grades. By that time, I was married. When I was almost ready to have Elizabeth — I was still working when I had Elizabeth. I mean, when I was pregnant with Elizabeth. When Elizabeth was — Let's see, she was born in June. For my third anniversary present my husband took me to the London Bar and Grill at the Benson [Hotel], which we couldn't afford, and told me that my anniversary present was that he had borrowed enough money from his rich uncle so that I wouldn't have to work — because my salary was very important to us at that time. He recognized how important it was for me to finish law school. He knew that the best time to do it was then while Elizabeth was still in the bassinet. So, he had borrowed the money from his uncle so that I wouldn't have to work and I could pay a babysitter to come in the mornings. So, I went back to the law school.

LB: Was Bill in practice at that time?

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PAULUS: Yes. He had just hung out his own shingle and wasn't making any money at all, of course. But they were so good to me over there. [Seward Reese?] and John Paulus, who is no relation, but he's still there. I petitioned to be allowed to be a full-time special student. Based on my grades, they allowed me to do so. So, I took 15 hours. In order to graduate in one year, I took 15 hours in the first semester. Then I took 20 hours in the second semester and graduated. Then I had the bar [exam] facing me. It had been five years since I'd had some of the basic courses. So, I took the bar review course and passed [the exam] and was admitted to the bar.

LB: I've interviewed other women who were in law school about this same time and they have said that there weren't many women in law school at that time.

PAULUS: No. In the whole time that I was there I think there was only — The only other woman in any of my courses was Helen Simpson, who was an older woman from Anchorage, Alaska. I just talked to her on the phone the other day. She was a school teacher and a labor activist. She was married and decided that she was going to become a lawyer. I can't remember how old Helen was at that time but she was quite a bit older than I. She and I used to study together all the time. [She was] a very bright woman. But she was the only woman that I took classes with.

[End of Tape 1, Side 2]

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Tape 2, Side 1 1982 January 14

LB: How were you treated by the professors at Willamette Law School, and by your fellow, literally, fellow law students?

PAULUS: I don't ever remember any feeling of discrimination at all. None at all except in one instance in law school. This was my last year when I was taking 20 hours. I had this small baby. There was a professor from California, a new kid on the block there, that was teaching constitutional law, which I got an A in, and also teaching the second half of the legal research program. The sys tern was then that if you were a second-year law student, you could not graduate until you had participated in the moot court competition. That required you to write a brief on a given subject. Then after the brief was prepared, you were required to argue it and go up the steps — the elimination steps. He must have known that I was an able student because he taught constitutional law and I got an A from him in constitutional law. But when it came time for the oral argument, I turned in my brief on the side of the argument that was assigned to me. I turned it in and I went in to him and said, "May I be excused from the oral argument part?" which made it difficult because I had a babysitter in the morning, but I didn't have in the afternoon and these arguments took place in the afternoon. I went to him and I said, "I'm graduating in June and if I won this, which was the second-year course, I wouldn't be here to represent Willamette Law School in the regional competition or the national competition." Now that was not far-fetched because just the year before the Willamette student had won the national competition. I remember he laughed when I said that. And he said, "Well, there's not much likelihood of that, Mrs. Paulus." He said, "Everyone must at least go through one oral argument and I'm not going to excuse you from it." That's the only time I ever remember being really mad. I was very angry and I walked out of there and I thought, "Okay, Buster! If that's the way you want it, that's the way you're going to get it."

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I won the moot court competition. Then he had the audacity to ask me, because I was so very good at it, to delay my graduation for a year so I could represent Willamette in the regional and national tournaments. So, there was some satisfaction in that.

LB: Once you determined to finish law school, what did you hope to do with your degree?

PAULUS: By then, I was pregnant with my second child and I don't know what I — I don't remember thinking about that. I worked for the Supreme Court in writing synopsis of briefs at home when we lived on 14th Street when my children were babies. Then I started working as an appellate lawyer. I did that because I could do it at home or I could do it at my own leisure. It's not like having customers or clients that you have to respond to. I did that with success until finally one day Wally Carson, whose family had had the law firm next to where I first started working in the Pioneer Trust Company — he and I had graduated from law school together — he came to me and said "I want to run for the Legislature. Would you help me? Would you be on my committee?" Bill and I thought that I should do that. So, I became involved in politics. I'd been involved in a minor way in school budget issues but nothing really political because all the time I was in law school, I didn't have time to think about anything, I was either working and studying; or working, studying and pregnant; or keeping my house, and my family, and studying. So, I really didn't have any time for extracurricular thought or extracurricular activity in that period in my life.

LB: Did you have help with your family? Household help?

PAULUS: No. The only help that I had was when I was going to law school. I had a Mormon lady that came in every morning and took care of Elizabeth.

LB: What kind of experience did you gain when you were working for Wally Carson?

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PAULUS: Well, I found that I was really good at it. As a matter of fact, by the time we'd finished his campaign, most of the stuff that is now used in political campaigns came from the stuff that Wally, and I, and Dave Rhoten did then. So, Wally's election was an enormous success. It was the best campaign that this county had seen in – well, ever seen. That kind of gave me a reputation then so I had other people asking me to do the same thing. I remember that [Robert] Packwood was elected to the house of representatives and I remember he called me several times and asked me to be his secretary. I remember being insulted by that and thinking about myself, "If I ever go down to the statehouse, I'll be going under my own steam." Interestingly enough the woman who did go to work for him is my secretary, Ann Laue.

LB: Who or what made you decide to run as a candidate yourself?

PAULUS: Well, then we worked on Wally's second campaign. When the senate seat opened up, and he decided that he was going to run for the senate, I by that time had figured out that that's what I was going to do.

LB: And when did you have your opportunity?

PAULUS: I ran in 1970.

LB: What kinds of issues did you concern yourself with at that time?

PAULUS: I was very involved with all the livability and environmental issues. Interestingly enough, when I told Wally that I was going to run, he told me that I couldn't get elected. The biggest obstacle to my election in 1970 was the fact that I was a woman. This county had only elected one other woman to the Legislature in its history. That was the year that I was born, 1933. The woman is still alive and lives here.

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LB: Who is that?

PAULUS: Hannah Martin [Hansen?].

LB: She might make a good oral history interview.

PAULUS: She would. She now is involved in senior citizen – she's a senior citizen activist, or she was when I was in the Legislature. She would be, I think. I've often wondered how she ever got elected. The time she got elected, I think Hannah was married to a Jew. I'm not sure about that. But I've often wondered how she got herself elected.

LB: In what way was being a woman an obstacle do you think?

PAULUS: Looking back on it, it wasn't so much that I was a woman because this county had elected a woman as district attorney. Bur if you stop to think about it, the most significant factor of my election in 1976 was not that I was the first woman to be the treasurer, or governor, or secretary of state. The really significant. Two of them were that I wasn't into politics on my husband's coattails — number one — which is the standard thing like Maurine Neuberger. The other thing, the really significant thing in 1976, was that the people of this state elected a wife and a mother. For the first time they said, "Yes, a woman can do the same thing that a husband and a father can do." That's the really significant thing. They elect women that are divorced, elect women that are widowed, or elect single women but the really basic fact of my election was that I had children and they were still at home.

LB: I did at least one interview with a woman who was a mother when she was elected to the Legislature. She said that the constituents were concerned about the children — what would happen to the children.

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PAULUS: Oh, yes. Oh, gosh, yes.

LB: And what did you tell them when they asked?

PAULUS: Well. — I usually told them about the story of — The first time when I ran, that was the biggest obstacle and it didn't come from the very poor people. It came from my own socioeconomic class, and it didn't come from men; it came from women. Somehow, I was threatening their role and I remember a turning point in my campaign. We would always have coffees and we'd try to have them in homes that the people would come to see the house even if they wouldn't come to see me. The hardest sell I had was women in my own socioeconomic class in this community because they would come and listen very carefully to me because they didn't know that I'd had such a "hard scrabble" background, as my husband calls it. We live in a very nice house now — a very nice neighborhood — and my husband's family was prominent here for years. So, they'd come and listen at that rate with interest, and they'd come to see the house. But I'd always feel, "Well, I'm not, getting through to them, why not?" I could go to the Lions Club, the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and I'd know when I left there that those men were going to vote for me because they knew I knew what I was talking about. Finally, one day I'd had enough of that. We had a huge gathering someplace for this coffee. I have a friend whose name is also Norma and was a nurse at the time. Her children were born the same time as mine. I said, "You know, it's very interesting. I want to talk to you about something that is really bothering me. Why is it that you will tell this Norma that it's all right for her to be a nurse, which takes just so much discipline, maybe more discipline and just as much time away from the family as what I want to do? You say it's all right for her to be a nurse and you don't worry that her husband is going to run off and marry somebody else. Or, you don't worry that her children are going to turn to drugs and pot. But when I stand up and say 'Let me be your legislator and I'd be able to be home more — my flex hours would be different than being a nurse on a standard shift.'” I said, "I don't understand that. Why is it that you will let Norma with the same family, the same

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background, everything else — it's not all right for me to be your legislator? That doesn't make sense to me. Why do you think that if you say, 'Yes, Norma, you can be our legislator' that my family is going to disintegrate? But I don't think you're being fair to me. You're putting your own time constraints, your own sense of values, and your own sense of what you want to be and imposing it on me and that's not right." I said, "I would be very good at being your legislator." Well, it must have sunk in because –. But that was before feminism caught on. And I certainly wasn't a feminist at that point, at all. I put other women down and thought, "Well, it's their own attitude that kept them where they were." But that really was still a factor until 1976 — I'd go into a school where the woman had been working since her kids were infants. They'd say, "Well, what about your children?" And I'd say, "What about your children? I was home with mine until they went to school. You've been out in the work force when they were one, two, three, four, and five. I was home with mine between one and six." "Oh, well, it's different." I said, "Well, how is it different? I don't understand it? It's different because I want to go to the Capitol, or something?" It threatened their own sense of value and what they were doing once I stepped out of that old mold that they had placed on me. But that all changed very dramatically.

LB: You said that you weren't a feminist then. Do you consider yourself to be a feminist now?

PAULUS: Oh, yes. I am an ardent feminist. A lot of things happened to me once I got in the Legislature that just made me turn myself inside and out. Oh, yes.

LB: Such as?

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PAULUS: Well, I don't — As I said when I was in law school I really didn't experience any discrimination. I have women come to me all the time and say, "How do you manage to have such a handsome husband and two children and you seem to be happy and functioning and still do what you do?" Which at that time was lawyering. Looking back on it, I'd always kind of put them down. And a couple of things happened. When I was running for the Legislature, it hit me right in the face that my sex was the greatest obstacle. That really angered me. But it took me awhile to sort it out in my mind to find out really where I was coming from. Then on the day that I filed — in March — Bill and I were taking our kids to Victoria for their little spring break. As we were waiting to get on the ferry boat, I bought a copy of Atlantic Monthly and it was all devoted to feminism. In there I read an article by Catharine Drinker Bowen, the biographer. On the ferryboat I read that. Essentially what she said is that the quote "the professional woman," the woman who has made it in the so called male dominated professions are the biggest albatross around the women's movement's neck because she doesn't want other women to do as she does. And I thought to myself, "My God, she's certainly talking about me. I really had to look at myself and I think that's the first time that I did. I thought, "I don't want other women to become lawyer or run for the Legislature because it would destroy my own uniqueness, my own separateness, the thing that makes me stand out, that makes me a curiosity. That was a very real turning point in my own personal philosophy was reading that article. Up until that time, people would ask me if I'd read Feminine Mystique. "Oh, well, I couldn't be bothered." After I was elected, the only time that ever really hit me was one day when I was carrying a bill on the floor of the house. Another lawyer, who is a close personal friend of mine, was arguing on the other side of it. When we sat down, he sent me a note. He said, "You really sounded bitchy." I went over to him and I said, "If you didn't like my response, why didn't you take me on." And he said, "Oh, I couldn't do that."

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I said, "Why not?" He said "Well, I wouldn't want to humiliate you. That would put me in a bad light." Oh course, what he was saying was that he was so skilled in the art of debate and we were friends and he liked me, that he didn't want to humble me because, obviously, he would be able to just rip me apart. Well, that made me so mad — for him to assume that I couldn't handle myself, and it wouldn't be an equal foray — an equal intellectual argument. That just really pissed me off. I can remember just being outraged. That was in 1971. In between the 1971 and 1973 session I was invited to a meeting at the Meier and Frank — Something called the Oregon Women's Political Caucus. I went to it simply because I went to anything that I was invited to as a legislator. If there were four chicken- pluckers having a convention at four-corners and I was invited, I was there because I felt that was part of the contract. So, I went on a Saturday morning down to the tearoom at Meier and Frank and met Gretchen Kafoury. I remember thinking to myself, "Boy, if this isn't a ragtag outfit, I've never seen one." I suppose it was Gretchen, more than any other single individual, that really helped me turn the corner on feminism.

LB: Did you have any trouble when you were in the Legislature being taken seriously, then?

PAULUS: No. I think largely I went in and if you have a law degree and people find out that you have a law degree, you've never been to college, it gives you an instant credibility at least for brains. Then I didn't come in with a passel of bills. I came down here thinking, "I'll find out what the issues are and do my homework." I was careful not to speak on the floor unless I had something really important to say. I didn't pop up and down like a lot of freshman do. But no, I think I earned credibility very quickly. In the six years that I was in the Legislature, I was involved in almost every major controversy and carried major legislation. There was only once that a bill I carried did not pass. I got it passed the second time — the second day. No. I never felt that at all.

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LB: I should have asked you this earlier on, but why did you join the Republican party in the first place?

PAULUS: Well, I was a Democrat. When I was in Burns, I remember doing a little bit of Adlai Stevenson. There were campaigns over there. I remember being very enamored with Adlai Stevenson. I was still a Democrat when I was working for Wally. But the more I got involved in the local political scene, the more I thought that — at that period in time, the Democratic response to everything was to have the federal government do it. That just simply didn't fit in with my own background. The work ethic and the do-it-yourself was so instilled in me that it seemed like no matter what I was involved with in Salem, or Marion County, the response was to try to get the federal government to do it. I just felt that things should be closer to home. So, I suppose that, plus working so hard to get Wally elected as a Republican, and I switched my registration, and I always stayed that way.

LB: Which pieces of legislation that you worked on are you most proud of?

PAULUS: I think the most satisfying legislative experience I ever had was serving on a very prestigious criminal law revision commission. It was a statutory committee with Tony Yturri, and John Burns, and Jim Burns, Harl Haas, Wally Carson, Herb Schwab, Bruce Spaulding, people like that. We were charged with revising Oregon's criminal code, which had not been revised for a hundred years. After that task was completed and we got it past the Legislature, aspects of it were extremely controversial, some of which I carried the obscenity statutes and things like that. I think that was the most satisfying experience that I had because it was totally devoid of partisanship. I was dealing with some of the best legal minds in the state and they took their task very seriously. There was an intellectual capacity and drive about it that is missing in most legislative committees. But all the environmental legislation that I worked so hard on and women's issues, the criminal law revision commissions work.

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LB: Which do you think were your most difficult in the Legislature to deal with? Which issues?

PAULUS: The only time I ever lost sleep over any vote was not something I was carrying but just something that I was voting on as a committee member. And that was legislation that made it easier for the court to terminate parental rights. That's the one that, — I think, was the most troubling and had the most far-reaching effects.

LB: Who were some of the other women who were present in the Legislature when you were there and how did you work with those women?

PAULUS: Well, Mary Rieke was a great source of inspiration to me. Mary was so pure — politically on the issues. — She was really quite extraordinary. Of course, Betty Roberts, and Nancie Fadeley, Mary Burrows, Gretchen [Kafoury] and Vera [Katz]. It was wonderful to be involved with Vera, principally in the 1973 session when she was still very brash.

LB: Did the women work together on any specific issues?

PAULUS: In 1973 I went to Betty Roberts. The Democrats controlled then and, of course, she was our senior. I suggested to her that if the Republican and Democratic women held together on issues that affected women, that neither party had enough numerical strength to do without our votes on a crucial issue. So, Betty started the Women’s Caucus. In 1973 and 1975 we worked very closely and that was a very, very satisfying rewarding experience. That same solidarity does not exist and has not, principally in the last two sessions.

LB: Why do you think that is?

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PAULUS: There are women in the Legislature that are not committed to the feminist cause. The other reason is, which is particularly difficult for me to accept, is that some of the women that have come in now don't want to pay their dues. They assume that it's always been that way and there's no reason to stick together.

LB: Why did you decide in 1976 to seek the office of secretary of state?

PAULUS: For a couple of reasons. Principally because the Democrats controlled both houses so it was obviously anybody that — It wouldn't be possible to be speaker or president of the senate.

[End of Tape 2, Side 1]

Paulus SR 9065

Tape 2, Side 2 1982 January 14

LB: You were saying that the Democrats controlled the senate.

PAULUS: I had by that time invested six years of my personal life in the political arena and I felt that I was good at it. I made that commitment then that my most productive years would not be spent in the law but would be spent in the political arena. So, it's one thing to stay in the Legislature if your party is in power and you have a significant role in the policymaking. But if you find that you're not in power and you're always going to be relegated to a secondary role, if you're viewed as a real comer in the political scene, which I was at that time, the opposition party no matter whether it's Democratic or Republican is going to do everything they can to keep you less visible, less effective. So, I looked around and I thought I could see the handwriting on the wall. I am not going to be able to achieve any position of real influence in the Legislature given the current circumstances; therefore, I will run for the highest office available other than the Legislature and it was the secretary of state's position.

LB: That's amazing. So, you've achieved the highest elected position that a woman has sought, I guess, up until this time.

PAULUS: Yes.

LB: Yes.

LB: Actually, I shouldn't say that because Betty Roberts did run for governor at one time.

Paulus: Yes.

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LB: Did you have any of the old problems of being a women when you ran for this next office — for secretary of state?

PAULUS: That's very interesting. By the time I was running for this, it was in 1975 and 1976 because I was on the road. There were only six days out of 365 that I was not on the road campaigning. And those weren't all together. So, it was a full year period. In 1975 and 1976 it was at the zenith of the women's movement in this state. I don't care where I went, there was some woman that would step up or step out that would say, "Boy, I think that's terrific." So, I think that was a snowballing effect and it equalized those that opposed it.

[End of Tape 2, Side 2] [End of Interview]