Herbert M. Schwab, a former Portland lawyer whose career was devoted to public service, died Oct. 18, 2005 of pneumonia. He was 89.
Schwab was born in Portland on Dec. 26, 1915. He graduated from the Northwestern School of Law in 1939. Schwab served for five years in the U.S. Army, including three years in India. He retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel, Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
Schwab worked in private practice in Portland for 13 years before serving as a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge 1959-66. In 1965 and 1966, Schwab sat as a temporary Oregon Supreme Court justice. He returned to private practice in 1966. In 1969, he played a key role in establishing the Oregon Court of Appeals and served as a chief judge of that court for its first 12 years.
Earlier, Schwab was a member of the Portland School Board (1950-59), resigning when he was appointed to the Multnomah County bench. One of his most significant achievements came in 1964-65, when he chaired the school board’s committee to study racial segregation. Schwab brought together educators, community and religious leaders and members of minority groups. The group, known as the "Schwab Committee," produced a lengthy report in 1965 that drew national attention.
Schwab is also credited with initiating the formation of a Portland Legal Aid office while serving on a Multnomah Bar Association committee charged with studying the issue.
"Prior to that report, legal aid to indigents was spotty, at best," said former Oregon Chief Justice Edwin J. Peterson. "His committee’s recommendation was to create a full-time legal aid office. There was resistance to the proposal. He carried the day when the matter was considered by the MBA, and one was started soon thereafter. Today, in Portland, the legal aid office is a very substantial operation, serving thousands of clients every year."
Schwab also was one of Oregon’s two members on the Northwest Power Planning Council, now the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which maps power over four states.
In 1981, Schwab and his wife, Barbara, moved to Cannon Beach. He served as a municipal judge there as well as a member of the city council and planning commission. He also served as mayor from 1991-94. Schwab retired from public life in 2000 and moved back to Portland, where his civic work included serving as chairman of the Multnomah County Chapter of the American Red Cross and as a member of the executive board of United Good Neighbors, now known as United Way of the Columbia-Willamette.
Schwab is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.
• • • • •
Patricia Dewey Gaw of Hillsboro died Nov. 5, 2005, at age 68. Patricia Dewey was born in Victor, Idaho and graduated from Boise, Idaho High School in 1955. She went on to earn an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in 1959 and an M.S.W. from the University of Utah in 1965, and worked as a clinical social worker at Napa State Hospital in California from 1965 to 1977. She completed law school at the University of Puget Sound in 1983 and was admitted to practice in Idaho before joining the Oregon State Bar in 1987. She had practiced law in Wendell, Idaho, and in Roseburg, Springfield, Scappoose and Hillsboro. She was a bird watcher, a gardener and a voracious reader who often provided pro bono services to needy clients. Her husband, Dr. Emir Gaw, predeceased her in 1990. Gaw is survived by three step-children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
• • • • •
Edward Clair Harms, Jr. died of a heart attack in Springfield Nov. 12, 2005. He was 81. A Roseburg native, Harms resided in Springfield since 1949. The 1941 Eugene High School graduate attended the University of Oregon and Missouri’s Park College before going on to the U.S. Navy’s V-12 program in 1943. During World War II Harms served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific as executive officer and commanding officer through four different invasions, including Iwo Jima and Okinawa (1942-46).
In 1947, Harms earned his B.S. from the University of Oregon and his J.D. from UO School of Law in 1949. He was admitted to practice before the state and federal courts in Oregon, the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. From 1949 until his death he was in private practice – as partner in Harms and Harold ;Harms, Harold & Leahy; Harms, Harold, Leahy & Pace; and then of counsel to the firm from 1992 to 1993. He was Springfield’s city attorney; counsel for the Springfield Utility Board; counsel for Lane Community College District; counsel for Oregon School Boards Assoc.; special legal consultant to the League of Oregon Cities; and an arbitrator for the City of Eugene, among many other professional roles. He taught as an adjunct professor at the UO from 1958 to 1975. He held a host of civic posts as well, including, for example: Springfield City Council member; mayor (elected in 1952 and re-elected by write-in vote in 1956 against three candidates on the ballot); director, vice-president and president of the Oregon League of Cities; vice-chair of the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission; and member, vice-president and president of the state Board of Higher Education.
Harms received numerous awards during his career; one that he mentioned when he was honored as a 50-year member of the OSB was the Outstanding Service Award from Lane County in 1992. He enjoyed teaching, speaking, politics, golf, history, Duck Athletics and mountain climbing. He earned the Oregon Cascades Award for ascent of all Oregon’s major peaks.
Harms is survived by his wife, Patricia Honeywood Harms, whom he married in 1946, three daughters and six grandchildren.
• • • • •
William Walker Wyse died Dec. 11, 2005, after a long illness. He was born in 1919 and was raised in Spokane. Wyse graduated from the University of Washington and was a law student there when the U.S. entered World War II. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the USS Willoughby in the South Pacific for the duration of the war.
In 1946 he enrolled in Harvard Law School, became a member of the Law Review, graduated in 1948b and moved to Portland. He became the 14th lawyer in Portland’s largest firm, now known as Stoel Rives. He became a real estate law specialist and headed the firm’s administrative committee for many years, where he was known as a creative problem solver and practical thinker. Faced with a reduction-in-hours policy (that he had promoted at Stoel Rives) when he turned 68, Wyse decided to continue full time work at a new business he founded called Wyse Investment Services Co. (WISCO).He qualified for his real estate broker’s license in his late 60’s and built WISCO into a 12-employee firm specializing in real estate investing and property management. He actively headed the company for 15 years.
Wyse served as president of the Morrison Center (then the "child Guidance Clinic"), the Oregon Symphony and the Portland School Board. He also served on the boards of United Way, City Club, Loaves & Fishes and the Casey Eye Institute, among many other civic involvements.
He is survived by his wife, Janet, whom he married in 1944, three children and seven grandchildren.
• • • • •
Ron Patrick MacDonald died Dec. 20, 2005 after a long illness. He was 63. He was born in Portland and educated at St. Ignatius Elementary, Central Catholic High School, the University of Portland and Willamette University College of Law. He earned his law degree at Willamette and was admitted to practice in Oregon in 1967. MacDonald’s first job out of law school was as an assistant district attorney for Marion County. He worked in private practice in Salem for nearly 30 years before becoming in-house counsel for the business owned by his long time friends, Tom and Ginger Carpenter.
MacDonald married Mary Susan Gill in Portland in 1966 and together they raised four children in Salem. The MacDonalds divorced in 1997, but they spent the last few years enjoying the warm friendship they first formed in high school. MacDonald loved travel to new and favorite places (like a tropical island) and making special experiences possible for his family. He is survived by a son, three daughters and six grandchildren.
• • • • •
Judith Ann Hartmann died Dec. 30, 2005, after a decade-long battle with breast cancer. She was a teacher, attorney, businesswoman, entrepreneur, designer and advocate for women’s rights, and in the later years of her life, an advocate for finding a cure for breast cancer. She was 61.
She was born in Sacramento, Calif. and graduated from La Sierra High School in Carmichael, Calif., where she was valedictorian and her high school’s first female student body president. She was also scholar athlete of her graduating class. During high school, she was a champion equestrienne.
Hartmann attended Stanford University, where she received an A.B. degree in history in 1965, and a master of arts in teaching in 1966. She went on to graduate school at the University of Chicago where she received an A.M. in political science in 1968, a Ph.D in political science in 1974 and a JD/MBA in 1979.
Hartmann met her husband of 40 years, OSB member Jere Webb, while attending Stanford’s overseas campus in Germany in 1964. Judy and Jere moved to Portland in 1970. She taught political science at Portland State University and Reed College, worked in corporate finance at PGE, practiced law, ran a software company, and worked for Hewlett-Packard until she became disabled with cancer.
Hartmann was a pioneer in women’s rights in Oregon. She was the first married woman to change her name back to her maiden name while still married, which at the time required a court hearing, and resulted in an article in The Oregonian. Jessie Webb (Jere’s father) represented Judy in her hearing. She was also the first married woman in Oregon to have a Visa account in her own name; banks would issue a card to a married woman, but the card was always issued on the husband’s account. Judy insisted that she have her own account, and she prevailed. At Portland State University, Judy created and taught the first Women in the Law course.
After retiring from Hewlett-Packard, and while undergoing a long series of chemotherapy regimes, Judy, with assistance from her friend and architect Shawn Sullivan, spent the last few years of her life pursuing her dream of remodeling two family beach houses in Lincoln City, Watavue and Wecoma Creekside. A video of the story of the Watavue remodel won a Telly award.
She was passionate about cancer research. Recommended by her oncologist, Walter J. Urba, head of the Franz Cancer Research Center at Providence Portland Medical Foundation, Judy served on the Research Center’s Leadership Cabinet, as well as on a Department of Defense board that reviewed and made recommendations for DOD funding of cancer research. At Providence, Judy was instrumental in focusing fundraising efforts to expedite development of OX-40, a promising immunotherapy approach developed by Dr. Andy Weinberg and his team of researchers. Hartmann died knowing that OX-40 had finally obtained FDA approval, and that the first Stage I human trials were about to commence.
Hartmann is survived by her husband, Jere Webb, her sister, nieces and a nephew.