Mary Jane and 11000 South

Every time I come to the intersection of 11000th south and 10th east I think about Mary Jane Loso. It's your loss that most of you never knew her. She was a colleague of mine at Eastern for many, many years. A true scholar, with a Ph.D. in l Elizabethan Literature. My Riverside Shakespeare is a gift from her.

A small, bird-like woman, she joined the faculty shortly after I did. She was just a year or two older than I but because she had prematurely white hair, she always seemed much older and wiser. Mary Jane never married. She never owned a home, choosing to rent an apartment at the Sacajawea Annex all the many years she lived in La Grande. She never owned a car and never learned to drive. She was a talented pianist (almost majored in music), an excellent cook (one of our recipes for chicken came from her) and a devoted Catholic. Since we lived across from the Catholic church for all our years at 1005 L, we often saw Mary Jane faithfully attending mass. When I was in the throes of getting through Ph.D. orals at the University of Iowa in the 1960s, Mary Jane was the only one of my colleagues I heard from. She wrote and said she knew what I was going through and would light a candle for me.

She was deeply involved in all things cultural, giving financial and moral support to such things as the Grande Ronde Symphony and even baking cookies for their rehearsal nights. She was instrumental in having the local AAUW (American Association of University Women) sponser a children's theatre program, which got me involved in directing several shows aimed at young audiences and travelling with them to various schools.

One of my most interesting and challenging experiences was when she and I team-taught a course in Shakespeare. She concentrated on the literary aspects of the plays while I focused on the various theories of how they might have been staged. She really kept me on my toes.

We retired around the same time (1986) and a few years later she moved to be closer to her favorite neice. Some time after that I learned that she was in a rest home in the Portland area. We went to see her and she had no idea who we were. On a table by her bed was a picture of the new Humanities Building at Eastern, named Loso Hall in her honor. I picked it up and showed it to her. She didn't recognize it.....her memory was gone....all that knowledge....all that brilliance...all that talent...I wonder to this day whether anyone has been teaching her the gospel since she died.

So what does all of this have to do with 11000 South?

As I mentioned, Mary Jane never owned a car or learned to drive. On rare, very rare occasions, she would ask me to drive her someplace if she had something heavy to deliver. One day we were approaching the three-way stop signs where Washington, N Avenue and 10th street come together. About the same time we stopped, two other cars arrived and the drivers also stopped. There was a small moment of hesitation, then I started through the intersection. Mary Jane turned to me and said "How do you know when it's your turn to go?" I told her that it was sort of a "gentlemen's agreement" that whoever arrived at the intersection first had the right of way. She thought for a moment, then, in all earnestness, asked "What if they aren't all gentlemen?"

As you may know, the intersection of 11000th south and 10th east is a four way stop. To complicate matters, 11000th is a four lane street, with lanes for left and right turns. We go through that area fairly often and almost every time there are two or three and sometimes more cars arriving at approximately the same time. There is often a pause while the various drivers make a quick assessment: "Who goes first?" Every time I start through the intersection, I think of Mary Jane Loso and silently say "I hope we're all gentlemen."