Senator Lorraine Wojahn

Moore’s firm, married George Davis, Jr. and
also moved to Tacoma. George Davis also was
an architect and classmate of Gil’s and Mary’s.
His family owned the Tacoma Millwork Supply.
Our oldest boy, Toby (Gilbert, Jr.) was not
in school yet; he was five. Our younger son,
Mark, was about two and one-half. When
Avalon died, Gil stayed and practiced with an
architectural firm in Tacoma, Lea, Pearson &
Richards, until he opened his own practice.
I’ll have to tell you one of the funny things
that happened when our older boy was about
three years old and our youngest one was just a
babe-in-arms. We’d gone to Canada for a trip
for a few days vacation. Toby, my oldest, never
liked milk but I used to make him drink it.
Coming back from Canada, he was quietly
looking out the back window of the car. When
we got to Marysville, Toby looked at me and
said, “I’m not going to drink any more milk. All
it is, is grass.” He’d watched the cows grazing
along the highway in the Skagit valley. I should
have sent that to Reader’s Digest. It was a
precious remark which I have never forgotten.
He was so bright. I said, “You don’t have to
drink any more milk if you don’t want to. We’ll
take care of it.” We never forced him to drink
milk again. I could never drink milk, either. I
used to get sick from it so I should have known
better. My parents tried me on raw milk, every
kind of milk, because I’d ‘urp’ it back up. So
they never forced me to drink milk.
Ms. Kilgannon: You might have been lactose
intolerant, too.
Sen. Wojahn: That’s what it was. And it was
that way for Toby also. We never forced him to
drink milk again. We substituted other things,
but if he wanted some he could have it. But I’ll
never forget that because it made me realize that
we live in a democracy but our children don’t.
Ms. Kilgannon: So he said something so bright
that it made you stop and think?
Sen. Wojahn: You bet it did. Anyway, during
those years in Tacoma, when Toby was in
kindergarten, I was pre-school president. Later
on, I worked in PTA and was chairman of
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several committees while my children were in
elementary school, including Ways and Means,
where we helped raise money for special
projects for schools. Generally, all the
neighborhood kids seemed to end up in our yard
because I was home all the time. They were
good years. We didn’t have much, but no one
did.
Ms. Kilgannon: Without knowing it, I suppose
you were building quite a network of people
who looked to you for some kind of leadership?
Sen. Wojahn: Probably, yes. Always through
PTA. I was pre-school president and I didn’t
want to be president of the elementary school
PTA. I organized things and everything seemed
to go real smoothly, but I didn’t want to be
president again. So I often served as program
chairman and Ways and Means chairman. I
remember one time when I was president we
had a gal who was the program chairman. In
doing her planning for the year she announced
that we were going to have Rabbi Rosenthal
here for our Christmas program. Aghast, I said,
“Have Rabbi Rosenthal for a Christmas
program? Jewish people don’t recognize
Christmas, you know.” She didn’t realize that!
That actually happened! I’ll never forget it. So
we changed the program and invited him for
November. She had not invited him yet. She
was just doing the scheduling.
Ms. Kilgannon: In retrospect, do you think that
you learned some parliamentary procedure and
how to work with people during these years?
How to run meetings?
Sen. Wojahn: I learned how to work with
people, how to get along. I think people did look
to me as a leader, but I never really wanted to
lead.
Ms. Kilgannon: There are different kinds of
leadership.
Sen. Wojahn: I just wanted to do things right. I
wanted things done well and I insisted that they
be done well. But I never pushed people. Even
in the Legislature, I wanted to be there but
women were not taught to lead at that time. My
family always told my brother and me that we