Fern Hobbs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fern Hobbs | |
 Hobbs in 1913
|
|
| Born | May 8, 1883 Bloomington, Nebraska |
|---|---|
| Died | April 10, 1964 (aged 80) Oregon |
| Burial place | Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery Coordinates: |
| Occupation | secretary |
Fern Hobbs (1883-1964) was an American attorney and secretary in the state of Oregon. After graduating from law school, she served as the private secretary to Oregon Governor Oswald West and made national news when she was sent to enforce martial law in the small Eastern Oregon town of Copperfield. A native of Nebraska, Hobbs would later work for the Red Cross in Europe and at the Oregon Journal newspaper.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Hobbs was born on May 8, 1883, in Bloomington, Nebraska, the daughter of John Alden Hobbs and Cora Bush Hobbs.[1] In 1904, the family moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, and Fern began working as a governess for J. Wesley Ladd in Portland, Oregon.[1] In addition to her work she also helped raise her younger brother and sister while studying stenography, studying the law, and working as a secretary.[1] In 1913, Fern Hobbs graduated from Willamette University College of Law with a Bachelor of Laws degree.[2] That year she was also admitted to the state bar.[3]
[edit] Copperfield, Oregon
After graduation from law school Hobbs began working for Oregon Governor Oswald West as a private secretary.[2] In her role as personal secretary, West ordered her to Copperfield, Oregon, on January 2, 1914, along with a group of six militia men that included Oregon State Penitentiary warden B.K. Lawson.[2] Her orders were to restore law and order to this small town in Eastern Oregon near the Idaho border.[1] Copperfield, located on the Snake River in Baker County, had grown up around construction projects for a railroad tunnel and power plant.[1] Fifteen-hundred jobs in the area came from the railway project of E.H. Harriman or the power generation facility.[2]
Along with these jobs came saloons, brothels, dancing halls, and gambling.[1] From this a general lawlessness had taken over as there were no law enforcement officials in the town and the local government officials simply became bar keepers.[2] At this time the sale of liquor was illegal in the state.[4] Due to these problems some local residents appealed to the state government for assistance.[1] From this appeal Governor West ordered county officials to restore order, close the saloons, and force the resignations of the corrupt city leaders by December 25, 1913.[2]
| Armed? Well, yes; I am. I have a dressing bag, a portfolio and an umbrella. I don't believe I could do much damage with these. Do I look like a Carrie Nation to you? Fern Hobbs responding to the question of if she was armed en route to Copperfield[3] |
However, county officials did not take care of the problem and West then sent Hobbs into action, hoping the presence of a woman would prevent any outbreak of violence.[3] The governor and Hobbs also did not publicly acknowledge the accompaniment of the militia men for the same reason.[3] Hobbs was a petite woman standing 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing less than 100 pounds.[5] This diminutive woman arrived with her escorts with orders to restore order and to implement martial law if necessary.[1] The saloon keepers dressed up the town with bunting, blue ribbons, and flowers in anticipation of Hobbs arrival.[3] After gathering the town and meeting with them at 2:30 pm on January 3, the town officials refused to resign and so they were arrested as martial law was implemented.[2]
Soon the town was disarmed and order restored, with the gambling equipment and weapons confiscated, and the saloons closed down.[2] Hobbs then left Lawson in charge and caught the 4:00 pm train out of town that same day.[2] She stopped at the county seat in Baker City to officially remove the town’s officials in front of a judge before returning to the state capitol in Salem.[2] This was the first time martial law had been implemented in Oregon since the Civil War.[4]
These events made her the most famous woman in Oregon at that time.[2] Hobbs also made national and international news for these events.[2] As writer Stewart Holbrook dryly noted, "In provincial New York City, for instance, and for three days running, the Copperfield affair crowded the Becker-Rosenthal case for front-page position."[6]
[edit] Later life
After the Copperfield Affair, she continued as Governor West's secretary until the end of his term in 1915.[3] She then moved to Portland and practiced law.[3] Women's rights groups promoted Hobbs as a candidate to run for the governor's office, but she never ran for office.[3] Within a few years Fern Hobbs became the commissioner for the state industrial accident commission working on getting taxes due on the Oregon & California Lands.[1] In 1917, with the United States entering World War I she began a long association with the Red Cross.[1] From 1917 to 1922 she worked in Europe including time spent as the chief of the casualty division in Paris, France.[1] In that position Hobbs was responsible for notifying the next of kin for those who died.[1] Later she returned to Europe and worked in the Rhine Valley when it was occupied by France in the 1930s.[1]
Upon returning to Oregon she began working as a secretary for the Oregon Journal newspaper. Hobbs then retired in 1948 as the secretary to the paper’s business manager.[1] Fern Hobbs died on April 10, 1964, at the age of 80.[1] She was buried at the Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery in Hillsboro, Oregon.[7]
The Oregon writer Stewart Holbrook interviewed her in the early 1950s, a few years after her retirement, and noted that she "still weighs 104 pounds. Her eyes are clear and blue behind her glasses. There is not a gray hair on her head. She lives as quietly as she has always lived, except for those dreadful few days so long ago [concerning Copperfield]."[8] Holbrook noted during his interview that "the subject of Copperfield bores her" and concludes his account of her:
- "She had much rather talk of her two years with the Red Cross in World War I, in France, and with the American Army of Occupation in Germany. That, she says, and her eyes light up, was a real adventure. One gathers that she considers the affair at Copperfield to have been a deplorable incident."[8]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Kirby, Jo Ann. Hillsboro lady pursues career in politics, law. Hillsboro Argus, October 19, 1976.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l The Intrepid Miss Hobbs. Willamette Lawyer, Spring 2007
- ^ a b c d e f g h Terry, John. Oregon’s Trails: Spotlight was not intoxicating for envoy who downed saloons. The Oregonian, January 9, 2005.
- ^ a b Horner, John B. (1919). Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland. p. 310.
- ^ Fern Hobbs Takes on Wide-Open Copperfield. Oregon State Archives. Retrieved on January 30, 2008.
- ^ Holbrook, Stewart. "The Affair at Copperfield", reprinted in Wildmen, Wobblies and Whistle Punks (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1992), p. 80.
- ^ Fern Hobbs. Find-A-Grave. Retrieved on January 30, 2008.
- ^ a b Holbrook, p. 82
