Processing Update – July 2023

The SCUA archivists have been hard at work and four more collections were made available for research in June.

The finding aids for these, and all, SCUA collections can be accessed through our archival collections database, Archives West and the UO Libraries catalog.

Collections now available for research:

Judith Pauline Autio papers, Coll 722

Judith Pauline (JP) Autio was born in Michigan in 1938. She graduated from the School of Medical Technology in Seattle, Washington in 1961 and received a Master of Science degree in Zoology from Arizona State University. She worked in nuclear medicine before coming to Oregon in 1975. In partnership with Jemma Crae, Autio founded Steppingwoods, a 140-acre women’s land community in Southern Oregon in the 1970s. She built the original cabins on the land herself, as well as numerous outbuildings and bridges. She began showing signs of dementia in her late 40s, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at age 52, and died in 2001 at age 62.

Dean Southern Jennings papers, Ax 734

Dean Jennings (1905-1969) was born in Rochester, New York, on June 30, 1905. He was the son of Reverend Webster Wardell Jennings and Mary Jennings. He attended school in Munich, Germany from 1911-1915, West High School in Rochester, New York, from 1920-1923, and Lowell High School in San Francisco from 1923-1924.

Jennings began his journalistic career as a reporter for the San Francisco Journal in 1923, going on to work as a sports writer for the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Herald in 1924. From 1925 to 1927, he lived in France, where he worked as a reporter and rewriter for the Paris Herald until 1927. In 1928 Jennings returned to San Francisco and became the chief rewriter for the Call-Bulletin. He remained in this position until 1934.

From 1934-1935, Jennings was the executive secretary of the Northern California Newspaper Guild. He was regional director of the United States Resettlement Administration in Denver and Indianapolis from 1935-1936. From 1936 to 1937 he was the regional director of the distribution and promotion for U.S. Government Films in Chicago and Hollywood. In 1937 he was the regional information representative of the U.S. Social Security Board in San Francisco and the director of the press for the Golden Gate International Exposition. He was the Pacific Coast representative for the U.S. Film Service in 1939, the regional information director for the U.S. Office of Emergency Management in San Francisco in 1941, and regional director of the U.S. Office of War Information in San Francisco from 1942-1943.

During the 1940s Jennings was breaking into the free lance magazine market. His first sales were to detective magazines. Jennings then returned to newspaper work in the early 1950s and wrote a gossip, man-about-town column for the San Francisco Chronicle, called “It’s News to Me,” from 1951-1953. From 1947-1948, Jennings spent a year in Switzerland writing articles. Jennings wrote under several pseudonyms in the beginning of his career, including Robert Southern, Ward Winslow, Dorothy Cole, Carlton Russell, John Wesley Noble and Foster Rawls.

Jennings married Elsie Virginia Jennings in 1930 and divorced in 1938. He was then married to Doris Lucile Drury from 1940-1952, and to Mary Elizabeth Foster from 1953 until his death. He had six children.

Virginia Elwood-Akers papers, Coll 873

Virginia Elwood-Akers (1938- ) is a Los Angeles native, who received her Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a Master of Library Science from the University of Oregon in 1972, and a Master of Mass Communication from California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 1981. Elwood-Akers is the author of Women War Correspondents in the Vietnam War, 1961-1975, the final product of research performed for her Mass Communication degree.

Patrick J. Gallagher papers, Ax 301

Patrick Joseph Gallagher was born in 1884 and came to Oregon in 1913. He settled in Bend with the intention of practicing law but moved shortly thereafter to Ontario. He served in the Oregon state legislature as a representative from Eastern Oregon in 1919 and 1921, returning afterward to continue his law career. Both his son, Martin Gallagher, and daughter were also lawyers. His daughter, Cecelia Galey, served on several state commissions, including the Commission on Industrial Accidents and the Commission on Unemployment Compensation, the first woman to hold such positions. She also served as circuit court judge and Sweet Home city attorney. Gallagher, who remained involved in his law practice and Oregon politics until his death, died from heart trouble in 1957 at age 72.