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How Our Chapter Began

On the occasion of the Chapter’s 30th Anniversary celebration, on April 25, 1991, our founder, Mrs. Mildred Schnitzer, recalled the story of how Portland Chapter 47 began. With local newspapers closely following the development, the Chapter’s first official meeting was reported in The Oregonian, on April 24, 1960, under the story headline, “Ikebanists Due to Gather”:

“Mrs. Morris Schnitzer, who joined Ikebana … in Tokyo while there on a business trip with her busband in 1959, will organize a local Ikebana chaper Monday morning at 10…. Speaker at the Monday gathering will be Mrs. Da[i]yu Y. Henjyoji an authority of the Saga Misho School.”

The following year, on May 19, 1961, the Oregon Journal announced “Charter Granted Ikebana Group” explaining that

“The charter is presented for a period of two years after the club has proven itself for one year….”

In the accompanying photo, Consul Katsuma Urabe holds the folding pages of the Charter, showing the inscribed names of the ten founding members, and the signatures of the 63 Charter members.

A brief overview of our Chapter’s history appears in the on-line Oregon Encyclopedia.

In October 2011, the Oregon Historical Society Library accepted our gift of photo albums, Chapter records and selected memorabilia from 1961 to the late 1990’s.

[NOTE: This history section was compiled and written in 2011 by J. Nakao, who takes sole responsibility of errors, oversights or misinterpretation of information culled from boxes and boxes of material. Last modified on 06 February 2021.]