Irene Hazard Gerlinger

Irene Hazard Gerlinger (c. 1886–1960) was an American fundraiser and the first woman on the University of Oregon Board of Regents. She is the namesake for Gerlinger Hall on the University of Oregon campus.

Irene Hazard, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James Rider Hazard, was born circa 1886 in Orange County, New York on her family's farm. Her father had a large cattle ranch in Arizona, where Gerlinger spent some of her early childhood. She died in 1960 after being a resident of Oregon for 24 years. She described herself as "a simple housewife, the 'cruel' mother-in-law to three fine young sons-in-law, grandmother to four young descendants, and a volunteer public servant by way of an avocation."

Irene Hazard married George T. Gerlinger at the end of her senior year of college on October 21, 1903. In 1910 or 1911, she moved to Dallas, Oregon where her husband supervised the Willamette Valley Lumber Company. They had three daughters, Georgiana, Irene, and Jean. She did not like the Dallas schools, so she hired a live-in governess for her daughters. Not wanting them to be in seclusion, she later opened a private kindergarten in their home and invited other girls to attend.

Gerlinger was educated in public and private schools in California, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Oregon. Describing finishing her degree she stated, "Then one summer I took my three little girls with a nurse for the baby, and went down to California to finish my work so that I'd receive my degree from the university there…We stayed in the Kappa house, and so in 1922 I was graduated, instead of in 1904 as I should have been."

Gerlinger founded the Dallas Public Library in 1905 in a room of the old Fireman's Hall, and in 1912, a building was constructed with local funds. The library was supported by Andrew Carnegie, who helped build 1,679 public libraries in the United States between 1883 and 1929.

In 1935 she founded Republican Women of Oregon Inc. with Ella Allen Scott. It became the Oregon chapter of Pro America, National Federation of Republican Women and Gerlinger was its first president.

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