Senator Lorraine Wojahn

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didn’t like teaching and quit and then she went
to work in business. When she finally retired,
she was doing bankruptcies, working for an
attorney referee in bankruptcy. Earlier, she was
an auditor for a radio station in Portland.
Ms. Kilgannon: Do you think she preferred a
career to marriage?
Sen. Wojahn: My mother went down and lived
with my grandmother for awhile so my aunt
could do her own thing. But my aunt took care
of Grandma, although eventually my
grandmother went to a nursing home and my
aunt sold the family home and moved into an
apartment. She always had boyfriends, but she
didn’t marry until the age of fifty-eight, to a
gentleman who was a telegrapher for the
Southern Pacific Railroad. After my
grandmother had died at age one hundred. The
nursing home was operated by the Seventh Day
Adventist church in Portland. They were very
good to Grandma.
Ms. Kilgannon: I thought your family were
Methodists?
Sen. Wojahn: My family were always
Methodists. My mother was the organist for the
First Methodist Church when she was a girl in
Portland. My grandmother, up to the day she
went in the nursing home, tithed for the church.
She was always a good Methodist. We were all
raised in that faith.
Ms. Kilgannon: I like the story of her in the
hospital with the priest. Could you tell that
again?
Sen. Wojahn: That was funny. She was eightysix,
living at home at that time and she fell and
broke her hip. They took her to St. Vincent’s
Hospital in Portland and sandbagged her hip
instead of setting it because they didn’t think
she’d survive the anesthetic. And she went into
a coma and my aunt was called to come to the
hospital because the doctors believed she was
dying. My aunt rushed to the hospital and as she
was approaching Grandma’s room, a young
priest walked out of the room and he was
laughing. He said, “Grandma is fine.” Then he
said, “I went in the room and I was laying out
my vestments to administer the Last Rites of the
Church when Grandma raised up out of her
coma and said, ‘Young man, I was born a
Methodist, I was raised a Methodist and I plan
to die a Methodist. Get out of here.’”
Ms. Kilgannon: No Catholic Last Rites for her.
Sen. Wojahn: No! That was my Grandma.
That is the story that’s remained at St. Vincent’s
Hospital. She lived to be one hundred. Her hip
healed but she had trouble walking after that.
She used a cane and they had a housekeeper
with her, but that’s when she decided to go into
the nursing home. The house was sold and my
aunt moved into an apartment.
Ms. Kilgannon: You once said that she went
around town preaching the evils of liquor.
Sen. Wojahn: Oh, yes. She was a member of
the WCTU, Women’s Christian Temperance
Union. I inherited my Grandma Ogilbee’s
tenacity, I guess. She would ride the street cars
in Portland preaching the evils of John
Barleycorn and also preaching for women’s
right to vote, women’s suffrage. She became
almost an icon in Portland during that time. She
did that until the amendment was passed, I
guess. In the state of Washington we had the
women’s right to vote much earlier.
Ms. Kilgannon: Yes. 1910. Do you think that
she knew Abigail Duniway?
Sen. Wojahn: I don’t know. She probably did,
but I don’t have any of her records. She never
talked to me about it. But I know that she did it
because of the stories I was told by family and
friends. She had some expressions that were
priceless. I remember my Grandmother Ogilbee
used to say, “you’ns and we’uns.” It was
colloquial from Iowa, I guess, where she was
born. “C’mon, you’ns, let’s go. Let’s go to
market.” Or, “we’uns will go.” I remember that.
She was a little tiny lady. She didn’t weigh one
hundred pounds, I bet. The Oregonian came out
and took her picture when she sold her house
after she got out of the hospital; she was about
eighty-six, standing beside her sunflowers. They
were taller than she was. I’ve got the picture.
She had an old swing rocker that I saved. And I