Checking in on Condon

Over time we have written with some frequency about Condon, Oregon, the small farming community where Linus Pauling spent much of his youth.  And though we have come know a fair amount about the history of this little town in Gilliam County, it was not until recently that the Blog had an opportunity to actually [...]

Lucile Pauling (1904-1992)

Less is known of the youngest Pauling sibling than is the case with Linus and Pauline Pauling. What can be said is that, of Herman and Belle Pauling’s children, Lucile—quiet, shy, and warmhearted—was the least hardheaded of the three. Always unsettled when trouble arose between family members, she often took on the role [...]

Pauline Pauling (1902-2003)

My name is Pauline Darling Pauling Stockton Ney Dunbar Emmett, and you can see I’ve had an interesting life…
-Pauline Pauling Emmett, 1994.
The sister of one distinguished scientist and later the wife of another, Pauline Darling Pauling, the second oldest of the Herman and Belle Pauling’s children, led a long and eventful life. Once a [...]

Working in Oregon: The Blue Collar Adolescence of Linus Pauling

Interviewer: Have you in the past, or do you now smoke?
LP: When I was about your age or younger, I thought that it was proper, something wrong if I didn’t smoke cigarettes; so I smoked a few cigarettes.  But fortunately I was so poor that I didn’t have money enough to buy them, so I [...]

Portland, OR: Pauling’s Teenage Years

“This activist loves Oregon more than he loves life.”
- Tom McCall
Portland, the largest city in Oregon, sits at the convergence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers on Oregon’s northern border. Known for its microbreweries, environmentalists, and growing nightlife, Portland is nationally recognized as an epicenter of West Coast progressive culture. However, a century [...]

Herman Pauling’s Condon Pharmacy

Linus Pauling harbored many fond memories of his short time in the small town of Condon, Oregon. Of these memories, a number of them involve his father Herman and his drugstore.
Herman Pauling, born in 1876, began his career in pharmacy as the apprentice of an Oswego druggist. Before long, he was working his way through [...]

Snapshots of Pauling’s Childhood in Condon

[Ed Note: The Pauling Blog wears a black armband today for the Oregon Historical Society Library and the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, both of which have been forced to close due to budget considerations.  The state of Oregon is little more than two weeks removed from its sesquicentennial celebration and it is [...]

Happy (Almost) Birthday Linus Pauling!

Cross-posted at Ether Wave Propaganda
Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon on February 28, 1901, meaning that this coming Saturday will mark the 108th anniversary of his birth. (He died on August 19, 1994 at the age of 93)
Over the years, one of our annual habits around here has been to reflect back upon [...]

Condon, Oregon: Pauling’s Wild West

“Is the small town a place, truly, of the world, or is it no more than something out of a boy’s dreaming? Out of his love of all things not of death made? All things somewhere beyond the dust, rust, and decay, beyond the top, beyond all sides, beyond bottom: outside, around, over, under, within?”
- [...]

Herman Pauling’s Letter to The Oregonian

“We cannot imagine what it is but I feel that either ourselves or our children will someday stand before the world as a specimen of a high standard of intelligence.”
-Herman Pauling, letter to Belle Pauling, 1905.
The documentary record of Linus Pauling’s early years is, unfortunately, rather thin.  Much of what we know about Pauling’s life [...]