Civic leader in Portland, Oregon
Louisa Flowers |
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![]() Portrait of Louisa Flowers at age 23. |
| Born | Louisa Thatcher
c. 1849
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| Died | 1928 |
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| Resting place | Lincoln Memorial Park, Portland Oregon |
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| Monuments | Louisa Flowers Affordable Housing |
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| Citizenship | United States |
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| Occupation(s) | farmer, land owner |
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| Organization(s) | NAACP, YWCA |
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| Spouse | Allen Ervin Flowers |
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| Children | 4 |
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Louisa Flowers (c. 1849–1928) was a civic leader and property owner in Portland, Oregon where she was a resident for 45 years.[1][2]
Life
Louisa Thatcher was born in Boston, Massachusetts in about 1849.[3][4] In 1882, she married Allen Ervin Flowers in Victoria, British Columbia, and moved to Portland.[3] They had four sons: Lloyd, Elmer, Ralph, and Ervin.[5] Allen Flowers worked at the U.S. Customshouse and became the porter-in-charge on the Portland to Seattle run of the Northern Pacific Railroad.[4]
Allen Ervin Flowers was a former cabin boy on the Brother Jonathon before jumping ship in 1865 at port. After a brief period of hiding along the river as the ship cleared port, he joined the small, but growing African American community in Portland.[6]
When Flowers moved to Portland, she and husband Allen joined the city’s small African American community, which numbered fewer than 500 people.[7] They purchased a farm in the Lents area where they raised horses and grew raspberries; their house became a gathering space for Portland’s small Black community and they hosted members of the three early Black churches.[3]
Flowers and her husband purchased and built several houses in the old Lower Albina Neighborhood; these properties were located close to the building named in her honor in the Lloyd District.[8] Allen Ervin Flowers famously constructed a road on NE Schuyler, becoming Portland's first Black developer in the process, to ensure that Louisa could safely wheel her baby buggy to Union Avenue.[2]
Flowers was instrumental in establishing Portland’s Black community on the east side of the Willamette River and developing the lower Albina area.[1] Her family’s civic leadership and economic prosperity helped them become pillars of Portland’s small African American community.[3] She served on Bethel AME deaconess board and was a charter member of both the NAACP and the Williams Avenue YWCA.[3][2]
She was a member of the Rosebud Club (also called the Old Rose Club), which was Black women’s club that eventually became part of the Oregon Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.[2] One important activity for the club was to raise money for a scholarship fund to help young women attend college.[3]
Death and legacy
Flowers died in 1928 and was buried at Lincoln Memorial Park in Portland, Oregon; she had lived in Portland for 45 years.[5][2] In recognition of her contributions to the city, the housing agency Home Forward named one of its properties after her; it is in the area known as Lower Albina and is on land she purchased near NE First Avenue and NE Schuyler Street.[3][7]
The Louisa Flowers Apartments are 12 stories and are financed by low-income housing tax-credits. [8]
References
