Hundreds turn out to celebrate late mayor Vera Katz

The ceremony was simple. It was meant to be.

That’s the way, her son said, she would have wanted it.

But in an hour, the memorial Sunday at the Portland Art Museum for the city’s late mayor, Vera Katz, managed to flash through a lifetime of achievement. Speakers hailed her courage, tenacity, empathy and accomplishments that put a stamp on Portland’s landscape and broke glass ceilings in Oregon politics.

And in photo after photo, as a young bride, campaigning for office, alongside former President Bill Clinton and waving to crowds in the Rose Parade, there she was: always beaming with those bright eyes and effervescent smile.

The memorial aimed to give Portland a chance to celebrate her, said Jesse Katz, Vera Katz’ son. “People need this opportunity to say goodbye and express how important she was,” he said.

Katz, who died last month at 84 of complications from kidney failure and leukemia, was a powerhouse of a politician. She became the first woman in 1977 to serve as chairwoman on the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee in the Oregon House. In 1985, she became the first female speaker of the Oregon House and the second nationwide to serve in that capacity. During her tenure as Portland mayor, a job she held for three terms, she celebrated the arts, ensured that Portland got its own Chinese garden, championed the Portland Streetcar and oversaw the building of the east side esplanade where walkers, and cyclists move daily along the river’s edge.

“It was hard to find a corner of the city that was not totally transformed by Vera’s leadership,” said Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, who introduced the four speakers.

Former state Sen. Margaret Carter, who served on the Oregon Legislature with Katz, said she would have been delighted with the ceremony.

“Vera would be happy because she loved happiness, not sadness,” Carter said, who looked up and spoke as if Katz were there, observing.

“As your colleagues, we did not think you’d prevail,” Carter said about Katz’ election as speaker. “You hung in there girlfriend, and you did it.”

The audience of hundreds of people was packed with political leaders, from Gov. Kate Brown and former Gov. John Kitzhaber to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Earl Blumenauer. Community, business and cultural leaders turned up. So people who don’t make the headlines, like the chauffeur who drove Katz to her dialysis appointments for 12 years and a manicurist, who made house calls to ensure Katz’ nails were bright and shiny up until the end.

Katz was a champion of the little people, Jesse Katz said. She also knew how to stand up for what she wanted.

Among the four speakers was former Commissioner Mike Lindberg, who served with Katz on the City Council. He praised her leadership and achievements. But he also remembered Katz addressing a group in a cathedral in New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks. She shared in the collective grief by recounting her family’s escape from Nazi Germany and settling in New York.

Erin Hoover Barnett, who chronicled Katz battle with cancer as a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive, talked about Katz’ annoyance one day at having to be rushed off for a blood transfusion before an important City Council meeting. She relented to the life-saving transfusion – had she not had it she might have bled out during the meeting, Hoover Barnett said — but she didn’t miss it either, striding back into the meeting before it ended and taking charge.

That sort of thing came naturally to Katz.

But though she was tough, she was tender, too. Jesse Katz, her son, recounted his mother’s trek on foot at the age of 7 with her family through the Pyrenees Mountains from France to Spain. She was only allowed to have one possession, he said, a little boy doll made of plastic and dressed in knit shorts.

“It became her security blanket as the Nazis rolled into France and as Paris, for an exiled family of Russian Jews, was fast becoming a death trap,” Katz said.
At one point on the journey, her father went wild with rage, grabbed the doll and hurled it over a cliff.

His mother never forgot that painful moment, Katz said.

“The doll had left a wound that my mom carried her entire life,” Katz said. “But it was a wound that also motivated and propelled her to do more, to care more, to give more.”

In the end, others had to care for her. A year and a half ago, after Katz fell and broke a hip, three women from Tonga, Mele Eteaki, Lisa Kofe and Lea Fapuiaki, were hired as her round-the-clock caregivers. Those women were at the memorial, saluted by a hearty round of applause when Katz asked them to stand up.

She didn’t like their Spam and taro, a root vegetable, Katz said.

“She sometimes bickered with them as if they were old married couples,” Katz said. “Mom didn’t like being dependent.”

But they were patient and loyal and kept Katz comfortable, he said. They fed her macadamia nuts and combed her hair.

She rewarded them with a pile of glittery clothes that she dug out of her closet.

Somewhere in the South Pacific, there are women dressed in sequins, spangles and rhinestones, Katz said, as the audience erupted with applause and delight.

By the time the mortuary officials came, the Tongalese women had her body dressed up in a yellow shirt, with the word “Tonga” printed on the front.

Once an immigrant herself, she left this world cared for by immigrants.

Katz’ small family was at the memorial: her son, her ex-husband Mel Katz, with whom she stayed close and Jesse Katz’ son Max, who flew in from New Orleans. Deb Linden, daughter of Katz sister, also traveled to Portland for the memorial.

In the days or weeks or months to come, Katz will sprinkle his mother’s ashes in places that she loved. Many will be in Portland, Katz said.