Barbara Jean Seymour

B.J. Seymour, social worker, poet, activist and educator, died Sunday May 22, 2016 of causes related to old age. She was 86.
Barbara Jean Jacobson was born in Chicago on Feb. 7, 1930. In 1945, she entered the University of Chicago under an accelerated program in which she earned the degree of PhB (Bachelor of Philosophy) in 1948.
The University of Chicago had a profound influence on her: entering students were encouraged to think of college as the beginning of a lifelong process of education. She went on to earn her M.A. in Social Work (with honors) at Chicago in 1962, plus M.A. from Portland State University (1982) and PhD from the University of Oregon (1985) in English, and to participate in Great Books Discussion Groups, often as discussion leader, for the rest of her life.
For many years in later life she led discussions of Shakespeare and other classic plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where Great Books Group members from Oregon, Washington and California gathered one weekend each summer to watch the plays and discuss them afterward. When a court order prohibited use of Southern Oregon University dormitory and meal facilities except for official university functions, the university appointed her Adjunct Professor for those weekends so that the Great Books gatherings could officially continue. The appointment continued until the court order was overruled.
She had moved a year after college to Oregon, where her first job was as a welfare caseworker. She worked in public welfare for 18 years, half of which she served in Salem as Administrative Assistant to the State Welfare Director.
She married Salem political reporter Douglas Seymour in 1963. Early in the marriage, his asking whether she'd mind his inviting some legislator friends over for dinner led to her getting to know key members of the Oregon Legislature on a first-name basis and eventually to a second career in lobbying and public relations.
As aide to the welfare director she was responsible for that agency's public information programs and – when the national War Against Poverty was launched in the '60s – she completed a preliminary study of poverty in Oregon at the direct request of then-Gov. Tom McCall.
In 1971, as Oregon was gaining international recognition for environmental leadership, she continued her public relations and lobbying career as information director for the newly formed Dept. of Environmental Quality. In her three years at DEQ, her voice was heard on several Oregon radio stations with weekly mini-news reports on environmental developments.
A lobbying job representing Tri-Met, the regional transportation district, ended in 1976 when she filed suit against the transit agency for discriminating against women. At the time of the suit, she commented that she wasn't inclined to be a crusader, but she realized that her action could have impact well beyond her own situation, and said, "If I don't do this, I'll be a gutless wonder, and I don't want to be that." She settled the lawsuit in 1978 for $10,000 and a written agreement assuring equal opportunity for women on the management level.
That $10,000 enabled her to meet expenses while working on her doctorate. She commented at the time that anything she might buy with the money would eventually get worn out or used up, but if she spent it on education, she'd have it for the rest of her life.

She lobbied for Oregon Environmental Council in 1977, and then returned to the social work field, spending a year as a free-lance social service consultant to nursing homes, followed by eight years as Social Service Director for Pacific University's optometry clinics. During that time she completed her second master's degree and took a year's leave of absence to study for her doctorate in English at the University of Oregon, completed in 1985. When the optometry clinic position ended in 1986, Pacific University hired her part-time as Assistant Professor of Social Work and English, leaving her free to begin a part-time practice in Gender Identity Counseling, which she continued for the rest of her life.
Besides her professional career, she maintained "avocational passions" for poetry and drama. She wrote poetry all her life, but declined to seek publication, saying she disliked rejection slips. She hosted a poetry program called "Word Shadows" on public and community radio stations for nearly 10 years.
She acted in and directed plays at various community theaters, notably Portland Civic Theater and Salem's Pentacle Theatre. Favorite roles included Dona Ana in "Don Juan in Hell," Bernarda in "The House of Bernarda Alba," and the title role in "The Jewish Wife."
In 1977, she performed "The Belle of Amherst" at the Portland Poetry Festival only a month after its release for amateur production, and then obtained a grant from the Metropolitan Arts Commission to repeat the performance at seven Portland-area nursing homes, where for some residents it was a first-ever experience of live theater.
Always interested in architecture, she designed the home in Salem where she and her family lived for six years until a job change led to a move back to Portland.
Her interests in arts and activism continued throughout her life. She was a regular attendee of plays, art exhibits and classical concerts a collector of paintings and original prints with emphasis on works of outstanding Oregon artists, and a lover of gourmet food –she often joked that when she got older she would "give up vanity in favor of gluttony and die weighing 200 pounds," but vanity always held sway, as she rarely exceeded 105.
She ran for the Oregon Legislature in 1978 as an independent, receiving about a thousand votes. That experience, she said later, taught her that she was "an excellent candidate but an abysmal fund-raiser."
She was an active member of the City Club of Portland, where she served two three-year terms on the Club's Research Board and on numerous ballot measure study committees – several of which she chaired. She was also active with Portland's Downtown Neighborhood Association, on whose board of directors she served two six-year periods, 10 years apart. She chaired the National Association of Social Workers' Oregon Metro District for two years, was a board member of the American Public Welfare Association (1969-70) and served six years on the board of Planned Parenthood of the Columbia-Willamette. A life member of Mensa, she headed the Oregon chapter for three years.
Although she belonged to the Baha'i Faith in her teens and twenties and valued her Jewish origin, she largely avoided formal religious affiliation in later life, commenting that, in her view, the only sin was to waste anything that could otherwise be put to use.
Having survived breast cancer at age 40, she took pride in staying physically fit, especially in later life: She walked the Portland Marathon in 1991; hiked and swam regularly, often completing a mile in the pool without stopping, "just to be sure I still can."
Survivors include her two sons, Colin Seymour and Leif Seymour, two grandchildren, and a cousin, Diane Jacobson-Born, of Portland.
Her ashes have been buried in the Park Blocks, at the base of a newly planted tree, symbolizing life's continuing.