A lifelong resident of Portland, Rod was born in 1925, when Calvin Coolidge was president. He grew up near Northeast 72nd Avenue and Sandy Boulevard (then the outer edge of town) and attended Grant High School. To relax he played golf at the Rose City Golf Course or tennis with his father at Washington Park. Rod always wondered why his parents gave him the middle name Muldoon.
Rod worked at Fred Meyer and in the shipyards until World War II, when he joined the Navy. After the war he came to ÈËÆÞÓÕ»ó, where he majored in political science and wrote his thesis, A Civil Service Commission of Multnomah County, Oregon with Prof. Charles McKinley [political science 1918-60]. He got a master’s in social work at UC-Berkeley, and returned to Portland where he worked as a social worker with Portland Public Schools.
Rod was a treasured husband, father, grandfather and friend, and as an intrepid city walker and hiker was a pedestrian advocate. He was partial to Scrabble, word play, and Bull Run tap water from Portland’s uncovered reservoirs, and was a founding member of Portland Community College’s Senior Studies Institute.
His wife, Fran, son, Steve, and daughters, Robin Fouche and Lesley Jackson, survive Rod.