Board Member - Pearl Alice Marsh Ph.D.

Pearl Alice Marsh was born in La Grande Oregon on September 6, 1946.  She is the fourth child of Amos Sr.  and Mary Marsh and lived in Wallowa until the age of 12 when her family moved to northern California. 

Pearl Alice, as her family called her, went to Wallowa Elementary School and attended church locally.  More than anything, she loved going to school and fishing and gardening with her Grandfather, Joe Patterson Sr. and Grandmother Arie Patterson.  Pearl Alice still loves Wallowa County and calls it "the most beautiful place on earth”.  She grew up with her two brothers, Amos Jr. and Frank, and two sisters Penny and Kay. 

Their father, Amos Sr., and grandfather, Joseph Patterson Sr., were two of the African American loggers who migrated from Arizona to Maxville in the 1930s.  While Amos and Mary lived in Maxville, Joe and Arie lived at Water Canyon where Mr. Ashby, the manager of their employer, Bowman-Hicks Lumber Co lived.  After her family moved to Wallowa, she still remembers going to Maxville to visit friends who still lived there. 

Pearl Alice holds a BA from Sacramento State College and a MPH and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.  She works as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor for the House Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Congress.