Audrey Caro
Rachel Vogel still lives in the house she was born in 100 years ago, on Feb. 9, 1917.
She’s moved around during her life – Alaska, New York, Hawaii – as she moved through various careers. But in the end, she’s back home.
“I took quite a few forays into the commercial world, but always came back to my teaching, education,” Vogel said.
She taught in the elementary grades for several years in Sweet Home before her interest in libraries prompted her to earn her masters degree in educational media from Western Oregon University.
“I was supervisor of the school district libraries for several years,” Vogel said. “There were 13 schools then and I headed the library program.”
Sweet Home competed in an Encyclopedia Brittanica contest for best library system, in the 1980s.
“We came out as one of the top 10 and then the spotted owl came along and the economy of Sweet Home dove,” Vogel said. “It hasn’t recovered.”
The Sweet Home School District library system had an open door, as an example to the whole state, she said.
“People were invited to come and look at it to see what we were doing,” Vogel said. “Yeah, it was quite a deal. Then it all went kaput.”
Vogel took a break from teaching to work for other businesses, including a logging company in 1940.
“They paid me 50 cents an hour, which was more than I was getting as a teacher,” Vogel recalled. “One time I asked for a draw, I asked for five dollars, and they said, ‘Don’t spend that all in one place.’”
Later, she moved to Alaska to work in accounts receivable for another company.
“I sat next to a man who had the payroll,” Vogel said.
“We argued for about six months and then he asked me out on a date. He asked me to marry him. I accepted. Three weeks later we were married and it lasted 55 years.”
That man was Harry Rollins, Vogel’s first husband.
They married in Alaska, but Rollins wanted to attend a school of modern photography in New York.
“I went with him and I couldn’t find a job because they didn’t think anybody from Alaska would understand how to do business,” Vogel said. “I finally got a job in a great big studio, retouching negatives.”
The culture in New York was different from what Vogel had experienced in Oregon and Alaska.
Some of the people she came to know in New York had never been out of the city, she said.
“When I told them I came from Alaska they would say ‘What was it like to live in an igloo?’” she laughed. “Chicago was supposed to be the edge of the world. You come from Alaska, (you’re) like an alien.”
She worked in New York for about a year but returned to Sweet Home when her father, William Mealey, became ill.
Vogel’s mother, Fanny, died shortly after Rachel was born.
Mealey died in 1948, at age 78.
After her father’s death, Vogel returned to her educational career and retired in 1978.
She and Harry moved to Maui, where he built a house that overlooked the ocean.
“We moved to a native village out on the end of Maui,” Vogel said. “It was the last enclave of natives and there was a big hotel there for wealthy people who wanted to come and find their quiet place and rest. It was a beautiful place.”
Though Vogel had retired from the Sweet Home School District, she ended up working at a library in Maui and finally retired when she was 75.
“We stayed there until 2002, when Harry died and I came home,” Vogel said.
Before Vogel met Rollins, she had been engaged to a young minister, Theodore Vogel.
“I went to Alaska and met Harry, so I broke the engagement,” Vogel said. “Here’s the amazing thing: After Harry died, he came out here. (Vogel) was single too, and we finally got married.”
The Vogels were married about six years before Theodore died.
Rachel Vogel is the first person in her family to reach 100 years old.
“I feel pretty ancient,” she laughed.
Though her mind is sharp, Vogel has some physical limitations.
She can no longer garden the way she used to, though she has plants and flowers in her home. She also faces some challenges with reading due to macular degeneration.
“I find as you get older and older, you have peculiar things happen to you that you never thought about,” she said.
Vogel loves music, but is losing her hearing.
“Now that I can’t hear, that’s a real problem,” she said. “I played the organ and the piano for years for churches, for Bethel Lutheran. I played for weddings and I played for receptions.”
Now the sound is distorted.
“That’s one thing I miss – music,” she said.
Asked the secret to her longevity, she said she doesn’t know, but maybe her habits have something to do with it.
“I’ve always been kind of a health nut on food and things and I’ve watched my weight, always,” Vogel said. “I never smoked. I don’t drink.”
She said she’s always liked fruits and vegetables.
“I liked to make cakes,” Vogel added. “My one weakness.”
She enjoyed the large chocolate cake her sons got for her birthday celebration held Feb. 4, though her birthday was Feb. 9.
“We had two celebrations,” she said. “The big one was on the fourth. We had about 40 people, all nieces and nephews and relatives.”
All three of her sons from her marriage to Harry were there: Gary, of Tennessee; Kerry, of Portland; and Larry, of Albany.
“I was overwhelmed by all the people that came,” Vogel said. “I have a lot of nieces and nephews that live right around Sweet Home. A lot of people came from Washington and Idaho. They came from all directions.”
There is a space for her 100th birthday celebration in one of the scrapbooks that sit on her coffee table. The front of the book is emblazoned with silver glittery stickers – “90s.” It contains photos from each of her birthdays, from 90 to 99.
The other scrapbook is one her daughter-in-law Lynn made for her.
“It kind of covered the highlights of my life,” she said. It contains news clippings and family photos along with poems about motherhood, which her daughter-in-law wrote.
“It’s been quite a journey,” Vogel said.