Biographical Note
Phyllis Pendell attended Oregon State College in the early 1940s and
graduated in 1944 with a BS degree in Secretarial Science. Pendell was born in
1922 in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Grant High School in 1940. She
married Hunter Castleman Parker in 1945 and had triplet daughters. Pendell died
in 1989.
Pendell's parents were Maud Vernon Pendell and Lawrence Roy Pendell.
Pendell's maternal grandmother, Eva Vernon, moved west to California in 1865,
married John Vernon, and moved to Lewiston, Idaho.
Content Description
The Phyllis Pendell Collection consists of materials generated and
collected by alumna Phyllis Pendell and her family. The materials document her
public schooling in Portland (Oregon) in the 1930s and her experiences as a
student at Oregon State College in the early 1940s. The Collection consists
predominantly of photographs (approximately 510 prints and 30 negatives) of
Pendell's family, primarily her mother's family (the Vernons). Many of the
photographs were made in Oroville and San Francisco, California and in Idaho.
Other photographs document Pendell's childhood in Portland as well as family
reunions and outings. Many of the images are unidentified portrait photographs
of family members made in the 1880s through 1920s.
The Pendell Collection also includes certificates, commencement
programs, correspondence, grade reports, newspaper clippings, and a land claim.
The correspondence includes letters between Pendell and her parents during her
years as a student at Oregon State College and other letters to and from her
mother, Maud Vernon.