ruth_powell_childhood.jpeg

Ruth Powell, photographed here with her mother around 1919, was raised in what would become the Richmond neighborhood in Southeast Portland.

(Photo courtesy of Jerald Powell)

Ruth Powell wasn't a public figure. She was not influential in the political or academic worlds. She was a teacher, a mother and a poor cook, family said, a middle-class woman educated in home economics who was self-conscious about her nose.

But her life, however seemingly ordinary, paralleled the movement and changes that made Portland what it is today. Her life, which ended Sunday morning, encapsulates modern Portland's story.

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Powell was born at home on East Burnside Street in 1907, her son said, in the midst of what historian Carl Abbott calls one of Portland's biggest growth spurts.

"Things were really taking off," said Abbott, a professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. "She would have seen the city really growing, expanding on the east side."

She grew up in a brand new house at Southeast 32nd Place and Southeast Stephens Street, Jerald Powell said, and graduated from Franklin High School in 1926, not long after it opened. Four years later, at the start of the Great Depression, she received a degree from Oregon State College in home economics and teaching.

After college, she took any teaching job she could get during the depression, her son said, before becoming a manager of the tearoom at Meier & Frank, Portland's premiere department store at the time. She probably commuted to work on a streetcar, Abbott said, which were essential for the lower and middle class at the time.

"She talked about catching a streetcar to downtown by 'hoo-hooing' it and waving a hanky," Jerald Powell said.

Ruth Powell told her son that she once dated a pilot, back in the days when commercial aviation was new and newly popular. The couple would fly to the coast, spend a few hours giving rides to the public, then enjoy a night of dining and dancing with their profits.

Ruth Powell (formerly Ruth Morrison), third from the left in white, married John Powell in 1939 in Grace Memorial Episcopal Church.

At 32, she married the family dentist, John Powell, who was 15 years her senior. They purchased 80 acres off Southwest Dosch Road. Not long after the couple moved to the mostly undeveloped area, the west hills became a residential hotbed.

Just like Powell, Abbott said, the concentration of Portland's growth moved from the east to the west.

She lived on the east side when it was the center of change, Abbott said, and moved to the city's southwest just before the hills became very desirable.

"She traced some of the trajectory of the city itself," he said

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During the first years of World War II, Portland's population grew by about 35 percent, Abbott said -- the city's second major growth spurt.

As people flocked to the city to work in the shipyards, the number of people in Ruth Powell's life grew, too.

She had her son, Jerald, and joined the Daughters of the Nile, a fraternal organization associated with the Shriners, reigning as the local branch's queen at one point. Fraternal organizations were popular, Abbott said, and would have been "the social thing to do."

Ruth Powell, estimated by her son to be about 35 years old in this photograph, worked as a teacher, a manager and a mother.

Ruth Powell became involved in various charities through her fraternal organization, her son said, and threw house parties for friends.

"My mother was known for graciousness," Jerald Powell said. "But she was possibly the worst cook."

At home, Powell lobbied for her husband to make a bridle path around their property, which measured about a mile in circumference. The couple grew produce on the land.

"There was no question that if she wanted something done it would be done and it would be done the way she wanted," her son said with a laugh.

She named the land "Bridlemile." Over time, she and her husband sold most of their land to developers and families eager to build in Southwest Portland. They quickly accumulated neighbors.

In the 1960s and '70s, Portland began to change politically and culturally. As she transitioned from middle age to her senior years, Abbott said, Ruth Powell would have seen the city she had known from birth transition into something new and unfamiliar.

"She would have been living in a city that is rapidly beginning to change into the cool, hip, well-planned city that we live in today," Abbott said.

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Ruth Powell, who died at home Sunday morning after a stroke, lived to 106.

Ruth Powell, photographed here at 105 years old, died on Oct. 20, 2013.

That kind of longevity is rare. In 2010, according to data from the United States Census, only 41 people in Oregon were 105 or older -- a mere 0.001 percent of the population.

Powell's long life corresponded with Portland's largest growth spurts: In the early 1900s, when the east side was first coming alive; during World War II, when the shipyards attracted new workers; and the last decade or so, when a growing economy brought an influx of middle-class families and young professionals.

Her move from the inner east side to the outer west side reflected the shift in Portland's main centers of growth.

She witnessed Stumptown's transition from a haven for streetcars to a car-dependent region. She watched as her birthplace on the east side went from a hotbed of middle class growth to a shady neighborhood to a gentrified, desirable area.

Franklin High School, which opened just five years before she enrolled, underwent plans last year for an $85 million renovation.



Oregon State College became Oregon State University in 1961.

Bridlemile -- the land she named -- grew into one of Portland's 95 neighborhoods.

Ruth Powell's story is Portland's story.

-- Melissa Binder

