Yvonne and George Ammerman: A shared love of canoeing, camping and cross-country skiing
Yvonne and George Ammerman
A shared love of canoeing, camping and cross-country skiing
What was your decision to relocate to Portland from Illinois?
We moved to Portland in 2013 from Evanston, Illinois.
Yvonne: I have two brothers who live in Washington. Often, over the years when we would go visit them, we would spend a few days in Portland. This is when we were both working – and we would say, hmmm, this might be a nice place to retire. It’s a beautiful, small city compared to Chicago.
George: It’s a great city for outdoor sports – everything we enjoy doing like canoeing and biking and cross-country skiing. It’s also easy to get out of the city. Because of the Urban Growth Boundary, you are rather quickly in farm country and wineries.
Tell me about life in Illinois.
Yvonne: I was raised in Illinois, in the northern suburbs. First in Park Ridge and then we moved to Bannockburn, near Lake Forest because my family wanted to have a horse. I went to college at Loyola University in Chicago, where I received an undergraduate degree in Psychology. Then, I received my graduate degree in Special Education from Northeastern Illinois University.
From there, in 1986 I became a special education teacher and taught in the Chicago Public School system. While my focus was learning disabilities, I also taught students with behavior disorders and those who were emotionally disturbed. I also had students with Down Syndrome and autism.
How did you decide to pursue special education?
I always wanted to work with children with learning disabilities, to help them achieve. I loved it when I heard them reading out loud to themselves. I knew I was making a difference.
What was your experience as a special education teacher?
It was challenging every single day. When I first started, as a student teacher, I was warned that I would quickly burn out. I was good for 18 years – but then, the last four years were tough. There was a lot going in the city and it was affecting many of my students. There was a shift in the neighborhoods. Residential buildings were being torn down. It was extremely difficult for families, often single mothers raising their children with the help of aunts and grandparents, and many of the children were just worn down, or angry, and it surfaced during school. My last year - after 22 years was the hardest. I was mentally exhausted.
George, what was your journey – you first started in Ohio.
I was born in Lakewood, OH and grew up in Westlake, just west of Cleveland. I attended Marietta College, where I majored in accounting. I would go on later in my career to receive my MBA from DePaul University, with a concentration in Management Accounting.
Three years after graduating from Marietta I passed the CPA exam and started working for an accounting firm in downtown Chicago. Over the next decade I held several jobs, and then began working for Rotary International, at their world headquarters, where I stayed for 25 years until I retired in 2013.
Tell me about Rotary International.
Individuals belong to Rotary Clubs and Rotary Clubs belong to Rotary International. Rotary currently has a global network of 1.4 million members with over 46,000+ clubs. Its primary mission is to provide service to others.
The first Rotary Club started in Chicago in 1905. They got the name because the meetings were happening at different offices and businesses around the city. An unusual aspect about this early club is that they only had one member from each business. For example, one lawyer, one tailor, one coal merchant. They had diversification by occupation. It became very popular, and by 1910 it expanded beyond the U.S. and there was a Rotary Club in Canada. By the 1920’s there were Rotary Clubs in Europe and Cuba. Today, less than a third of the membership is in the US. India, Japan, and Brazil have large Rotary memberships.
People join because they have a commitment to service. Local clubs are independent and have a lot of flexibility. They choose their own service projects and their own meeting locations. With membership representing different occupations, you can bring a lot of skills to any service project.
Tell me about your career in the Rotary.
I began working there in 1998 as an accountant and ended my career as a Finance Reporting Analyst. Over my 25-year tenure I had many different roles including working in accounts receivable, with the donor database, or supporting the fundraising staff with an analysis of contributions and analyzing the various types of programs that were supported by different levels of donors.
It was a big dynamic organization with about 500 people in the Evanston office. I enjoyed working at the headquarters because I had a lot of interaction with people from other countries coming to the headquarters for meetings.
What type of service projects is the Rotary involved with?
While there are many locally focused service programs including youth projects and fellowships, an example of a large-scale Rotary project began in the 1980’s with the intention to eradicate polio in the Philippines. They expanded the polio eradication project and partnered with the United Nations and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as securing large grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The number of countries with polio has been reduced to only two – Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Rotary played a large role in the success of the polio eradication program with volunteers helping to administer polio vaccine.
Tell me about the two of you. How did you meet?
Yvonne: We met on a cross-country ski trip in Northern Wisconsin in 1990 – 91, over the New Year holiday weekend. We discovered that we lived about seven miles apart from each other in the Chicago area. When we got back home, I invited George to a couple of events, but we weren’t really dating.
Then in 1992, I went to Japan to visit with friends that I had met in Alaska on summer camping trips. I wrote George a postcard from Japan and told him when I was coming home. The day I arrived home, the phone rang, and it was George Ammerman who asked me to go canoeing.
That’s when we started dating. In a canoe. In August of 1992.
Then we started seeing each other more. We both share a love of canoeing and camping or cross-country skiing. We became engaged in August of 1993 and married the following April. Soon after we moved to Evanston, IL. We’ve been married for twenty-eight years.
Tell me about your decision to move into Terwilliger Plaza.
Yvonne: When we first moved to Portland we lived in a townhouse on Corbett Avenue in the Lair Hill neighborhood. It was a three-level unit. After six years, we had enough of going up and down the stairs every day. It was too much. I was familiar with the area. I had belonged to the OHSU Wellness and Fitness Center, in South Waterfront. When I saw Terwilliger’s Aquatics Center and Wellness Center, I was impressed. I was also excited to live in a building with an elevator. We determined that it was time to move and decided to move into Terwilliger. We’ve been here now for three years.
One of the things that impressed us as well was the friendliness and the follow-up that we first encountered. We had called the Marketing and Sales office and asked for information. They immediately sent us a packet, and then invited us for lunch and offered to arrange for a tour. They were so welcoming, immediately.
Was the location of Terwilliger Plaza an important feature?
Yvonne: We knew that we wanted to be in the city – and not in the suburbs. Having lived in the Chicago area, I have always been a public transportation person. Here in Portland, the TriMet public transportation system including the bus, Streetcar and the MAX Light Rail are easy to access and reliable.
George: After we moved into Terwilliger we realized we weren’t using our car and sold it after four months of living here. We can get around on public transportation or by Zipcar.
Yvonne: George is also a biker.
George: When we moved here, we downsized considerably, but I kept two bikes. I enjoy biking to the Stadium Fred Meyers and just a little farther to Trader Joe's on NW Glisan. Two large waterproof bags that clip onto my bike rack each hold a full grocery bag. We also like the convenience to the PSU Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. It’s nice to have the flexibility to not have a meal plan and be able to cook when we want to, or not.
Are you involved in any committees at Terwilliger Plaza?
George: We are both involved in the Artworks Committee. We like the diversity of artwork that hangs throughout Terwilliger Plaza. The committee meets once a month to accept donated artwork, and to plan exhibits in the four galleries used for temporary exhibitions. Several residents enjoy taking pictures of the Parkview construction. I organized an exhibit of construction photos that will be in Skybridge gallery through January. Six resident photographers captured an amazing variety of subjects in the construction project.
I am also on the Disaster Preparedness Committee. This committee informs members about what to do during various types of emergencies and how to make their apartment safer. For example, this fall I helped take orders from neighbors for special picture hooks that keep artwork secure during an earthquake. The committee ended up ordering 374 packages of picture hooks from 95 members! I am one of about two dozen members here who participated in the City’s training to become a member of the Neighborhood Emergency Team. The committee likes to stress: The better we each prepare, the better we all will fare.
There is a nice community of people here who are united in our efforts to take care of each other in the event of a major disaster. Neighbors helping neighbors.
What would you say is a difference between Portland and Chicago.
Yvonne: I used to walk to the subway every day at 7am in below zero temperatures, up to my knees in snow before they shoveled the sidewalks. In my 22 years, Chicago Schools closed only one day, due to the snow.
They don’t know what cold is here!