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Memoir of an Unintentional Feminist
Joy, at the end of World War II, turns to despair for thirteen-year-old Mary Pacios when her friend, the neighborhood beauty is murdered. Mary’s despair is compounded a few months later when her mother leaves. Pregnant by her high-school sweetheart, at age seventeen Mary is forced to drop out of school and marry. Five years later Mary is a divorced, single parent living in the Columbia Point Housing Project with her three children. She wends her way through the repressive 1950s, supported by a community of women who live in the project. Mary refuses a dean’s request to quit art school because he believes she belongs at home “taking care of her children properly.” Mary graduates, while working as a waitress in a famous Boston jazz club to support her family. Mary and her three children move to California with her second husband where she finds herself in the crux of the Bay Area’s 1960s protest movements — civil rights, United Farmworkers, anti-war, People’s Park. As a co-founder of a Berkeley environmental group, with a small cadre of volunteers she helps to produce educational leaflets and essays and organize events. Mary continues developing as an artist and exhibiting her work. Moving to the Central Valley of California, Mary struggles to find a balance between environmentalism and her art. At a California state university she begins the relief printing process for which she becomes well known and graduates with honors. Unjust treatment by “true crime” writers and the sensational media coverage of her childhood friend’s death drive Mary to examine her own past and search for the truth surrounding her friend’s murder.
Kindle Edition
Published April 4, 2019
About the author
Mary Pacios
2 books4 followersBorn and raised in Medford, Massachusetts, Mary Pacios has lived in various parts of the country, from California to Wyoming and parts in between. Pacios earned a BFA (1962) from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston (Mass Art) with a major in painting and a minor in printmaking. She was the first single mother of children to be admitted to Mass Art as a freshman. The dean, who believed a woman with children belonged at home, was aghast and called Pacios into his office. He requested that she withdraw, claiming Pacios could not possibly finish the demanding program and was taking up valuable space. Pacios refused and went on to earn her BFA. However, when Pacios applied for a student loan, she was turned down because, although she was head of her household, according to the law in 1961, Pacios still needed a man’s signature on her loan application. (Her brother Robert K. Pacios graciously provided said signature.) Pacios received an MA with an individual major in Art and Social Change from California State University, Stanislaus (1977) where she studied printmaking with Martin Camarata under whose auspices she began working in the medium of relief prints. Her large linocuts subsequently received numerous prizes and awards.
An anti-war activist during the Viet Nam War, Pacios and her then-husband Cliff Humphrey were steering committee members and spokespersons for the first San Diego, California anti-war teach-in. During the late 1960s, the couple along with Betty Schwimmer and Chuck Herrick, formed the environmental organization Ecology Action. The historic organization's files are now housed in the Special Collections of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Pacios is the author of Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Dan Jackson, producer of the History Channel documentary on the Black Dahlia murder case, praised Childhood Shadows for its "journalistic integrity"; Rusty Fisher described the book as a "compelling view into the other side of a legendary true crime, that of the victim ... written by a woman who knew the victim from her childhood." Pacios donated her Elizabeth "Bette" Short / Black Dahlia research files to the Medford Historical Society in their hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
The work of Pacios, shown extensively throughout the United States and internationally, has been acquired by: the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts of the San Francisco Museums; The Art Museum of Santa Cruz, CA; The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA; Claremont College; El Museo del Barrio in New York City; Mystic Sea: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic Connecticut; California State University, Stanislaus; and the Zuckerman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia as well as by numerous private collections.
Mary Pacios, now settled in Portland, Oregon, enjoys a semi-active life, printing a couple of days a week at Portland State University, taking a nightly Tai Chi class, meeting weekly with the Park Blocks Writers group, all the while partaking of an occasional Happy Hour with friends and keeping her toes wet in the waters of social change.
An anti-war activist during the Viet Nam War, Pacios and her then-husband Cliff Humphrey were steering committee members and spokespersons for the first San Diego, California anti-war teach-in. During the late 1960s, the couple along with Betty Schwimmer and Chuck Herrick, formed the environmental organization Ecology Action. The historic organization's files are now housed in the Special Collections of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Pacios is the author of Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Dan Jackson, producer of the History Channel documentary on the Black Dahlia murder case, praised Childhood Shadows for its "journalistic integrity"; Rusty Fisher described the book as a "compelling view into the other side of a legendary true crime, that of the victim ... written by a woman who knew the victim from her childhood." Pacios donated her Elizabeth "Bette" Short / Black Dahlia research files to the Medford Historical Society in their hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
The work of Pacios, shown extensively throughout the United States and internationally, has been acquired by: the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts of the San Francisco Museums; The Art Museum of Santa Cruz, CA; The Haggin Museum, Stockton, CA; Claremont College; El Museo del Barrio in New York City; Mystic Sea: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic Connecticut; California State University, Stanislaus; and the Zuckerman Museum, Atlanta, Georgia as well as by numerous private collections.
Mary Pacios, now settled in Portland, Oregon, enjoys a semi-active life, printing a couple of days a week at Portland State University, taking a nightly Tai Chi class, meeting weekly with the Park Blocks Writers group, all the while partaking of an occasional Happy Hour with friends and keeping her toes wet in the waters of social change.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 13, 2019
Exhilarating roller coaster of a life story
Mary Pacios has navigated life through ups and downs twists and turns heartaches and heartbreaks and all with compassion and tolerance and an ever curious mind and adventurous spirit scrutinizing and examining and questioning the world around her. This is a story of grief and loss and struggle but also passion and resilience. A must read for any feminist unintentional or otherwise. And anyone wanting to better understand the what it means to be a woman striving to succeed as an artist and mother in a world that has so often pandered to men. That has striven to keep her on the fringes. Her story will charm you, ignite you, stop you to ponder your own struggles and also your privileges. But most of all if your like me, it will inspire you.
Mary Pacios has navigated life through ups and downs twists and turns heartaches and heartbreaks and all with compassion and tolerance and an ever curious mind and adventurous spirit scrutinizing and examining and questioning the world around her. This is a story of grief and loss and struggle but also passion and resilience. A must read for any feminist unintentional or otherwise. And anyone wanting to better understand the what it means to be a woman striving to succeed as an artist and mother in a world that has so often pandered to men. That has striven to keep her on the fringes. Her story will charm you, ignite you, stop you to ponder your own struggles and also your privileges. But most of all if your like me, it will inspire you.
April 10, 2019
The voice Pacios uses to tell this story- her story- is both witty and revealing about the realities women haves faced in the author’s more than 80 years. Coincidentally, her experiences are at times sparse, other times rich but always take into consideration the empowerment of herself and those around her.
She is frank and playful in her approach to story telling as she is in her life. With remarkable attention to detail, Pacios recalls the moments that have added up to her life- some beautiful, some tragic- all of them genuine attempts to find the fair and just path and walk it shoulder to shoulder with other poor, creative, artistic women (and men).
If I could give this book a 4.5, I would! It’s almost perfection.
She is frank and playful in her approach to story telling as she is in her life. With remarkable attention to detail, Pacios recalls the moments that have added up to her life- some beautiful, some tragic- all of them genuine attempts to find the fair and just path and walk it shoulder to shoulder with other poor, creative, artistic women (and men).
If I could give this book a 4.5, I would! It’s almost perfection.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews