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Marianne Shipley Buchwalter ’45

February 17, 2022, in Portland.

Marianne was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1924. Four days after Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), a pogrom against Jews in November 1938, she left Nazi Germany with her parents and younger brother. Through a series of highly improbable circumstances, the family ended up in Portland. Years before, her uncle had exchanged his property in Germany for property in Portland owned by an Oregonian smitten by Hitler. Marianne’s father purchased a business that manufactured uniforms and she began a remarkably rich and fruitful new life. Many years later, she recalled her first 14 years of life in a memoir, Memories of a Berlin Childhood, that described how everyday life eroded in Berlin as the Nazis tightened their net.

Forever grateful for having been able to come to the United States, she graduated from Grant High School and attended Reed, but finished her undergraduate studies at Stanford University. She earned a master’s degree in psychiatric social work from Columbia University and subsequently studied at the London Tavistock Clinic.

While attending Columbia, she was introduced to an attorney, the Swiss-born Fred Buchwalter, then a military attaché with the Swiss embassy in Washington, D.C. They married in 1948 and embarked on a 40-year journey of spontaneity and adventure. Eventually they settled in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where they raised four children. The couple also maintained a home in Aix-en-Provence, France. Marianne established a private practice as a psychotherapist, working with adolescents and adults, and was instrumental in establishing the Oregon Psychoanalytic Society and Foundation.

She was passionate about spearheading, promoting, and working with others on causes important to her in both the world of the arts and politics. Marianne and Fred participated in Portland’s cultural life and were active in the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Opera, and the Portland Art Museum. She was an enthusiastic supporter of Reed College, Chamber Music Northwest, Friends of Chamber Music, and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Marianne was a founding member of the Oregon chapter of Young Audiences, the Oswego Cooperative Play School, and the Woodstock Community Center (now known as the Community Music Center). Fred Buchwalter died in 1988. Marianne is survived by her four children, Andy, Charlie, Julie, and Nicki.

Appeared in Reed magazine: June 2022

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