Louisa Flowers
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c. 1849
Louisa Flowers | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Louisa Flowers at age 23. | |
| Born | Louisa Thatcher c. 1849 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | 1928 (aged 78–79) |
| Resting place | Lincoln Memorial Park, Portland Oregon |
| Monuments | Louisa Flowers Affordable Housing |
| Occupations | farmer, land owner |
| Organization(s) | NAACP, YWCA |
| Spouse | Allen Ervin Flowers |
| Children | 4 |
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]
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]