Elaine Cogan became the leader of whatever organization she was a part of. Cogan was an author, journalist, and civic leader who had a significant influence on her Portland town. At the age of 92, she passed away on December 18.
Cogan grew up in Brighton Beach, a largely Jewish area in Brooklyn, where he was born. In an interview with the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Cogan stated that the setting was extremely safe.
Cogan remembers her grandparents sobbing as she read about the war in the papers as a child during World War II.
Belle and Lou Rosenberg were Cogan’s parents. Carole was her younger sister. Her father made fur coats, and her mother worked as a secretary.
Cogan read a lot of books. She had pen friends across the nation. Cogan’s ultimate writing career began in an auspicious way when her mother encouraged her to write a piece for Seventeen Magazine while she was a freshman in high school. In terms of supporting me, I couldn’t have asked for nicer parents, Cogan remarked.
Cogan was happy when her parents made the decision to move to Portland following her first year of high school. “I had a strong desire to leave Brooklyn,” she stated.
Her parents boarded a train to Oregon after selling all they owned. After leaving Brooklyn, they relocated to a home in the Portland suburbs. She claimed that there were no Jewish neighbors and no way to purchase kosher meat.
Archive of Elaine and Arnold Cogan
Before starting at Lincoln High School, Cogan spent a year at Gresham High School. It was really essential to me that I ended up working on the school newspaper. She said that I was the editor.
Cogan went to a dance hosted by a Jewish sorority in 1949, when she was a junior in high school. She met a boy that night. I met this really sweet boy from Bath, Maine named Arnie, she wrote in her diary, recounting the incident. I’m hoping to see him once more.
Her wish was fulfilled a few days later. A Jewish day camp had enlisted her as a camp counselor. The same camp had employed him. Shortly later, he asked her out on a date while they were canoeing in Lake Oswego. After falling in love, they were married in 1952 and stayed that way until his passing in 2023.
Cogan studied English at Vanport College, which is now Portland State University, where she also edited the school newspaper at the time. While a student there, Cogan experienced politics for the first time. I served on a group that lobbied lawmakers to grant us permanent status. We lobbied all of Salem’s lawmakers.
Cogan studied home economics after moving to Oregon State University to be closer to her future spouse. She said that I was the only one who was unable to thread the sewing machine’s needle. She was not a straight-A student for the first time in her life. After meeting with the dean of students, she was given permission to abandon home economics and enroll in classes that she found interesting. She thus enrolled in English and history courses, eventually learning from author Bernard Malamud.
Archive of Elaine and Arnold Cogan
After graduating in 1954, Cogan and her spouse relocated to Portland. She approached the editor to write a public affairs column after noticing that the Oregon Journal did not have one. She spent 15 years writing freelance stories for the Oregon Journal and then The Oregonian while raising her three children at home. According to her son, Mark Cogan, she addressed a wide range of topics pertaining to the judicial system and government.
The Cogans constructed their house near Mount Tabor in 1961.
She became president of the League of Women Voters and was heavily involved with Lyndon B. Johnson s Model Cities Program, which was part of his war on poverty. She said, “I got to know everyone who was anybody in the city’s political life.” The goal was to unite minorities via economic development, education, and employment. One of the most important events in my life was that.
She was selected to the Portland Development Commission and became its first female chair in 1973 as a result of her work with the Model Cities Program. I was imbued with the Model Cities spirit and I wanted to make sure that we continued to serve underserved people. She said that I made our meetings more accessible to anyone who wanted to talk to us.
Cogan and her spouse started a public policy-focused consulting firm in 1975. She got hired to advise various local governments in their strategic planning, Mark Cogan said. A lot of these government leaders and business leaders were very uneasy about public speaking, and so she would coach them in private about how they could deliver their speeches more effectively. She would get hired by these elected officials and business leaders to help them craft their presentations.
Archive of Elaine and Arnold Cogan
Cogan became an unofficial adviser to those serving in office. She was top adviser to many of the notable Oregon politicians and elected officials like Vera Katz and Barbara Roberts, Mark Cogan said of the former Portland mayor and Oregon governor.
Drawing on her experience helping government and business leaders, Cogan wrote books. She co-authored a book called You Can Talk to (Almost) Anyone about (Almost) Anything, a Speaking Guide for Business and Professional People. She wrote Successful Public Meetings and Now That You re on Board: How to Survive and Thrive as a Planning Commissioner.
Cogan and her husband were confirmed tea drinkers. One year, on a trip to the Northeast, they noticed a paucity of good tea in the region. She wrote a letter to The New York Times bemoaning the situation, which was published. I got phone calls and letters from people all over the country, she said. The Times wrote an editorial about her. It inspired Cogan and her husband to launch a mail order tea business called Elaine s Tea Co. The business lasted three years. We had orders but we just couldn t sustain it, she said. A version of her tea is stillsoldby Harney & Sons.
Cogan was a sought-after political commentator on KGW-TV. My job was to prognosticate before the elections and during the elections, she said. Before anyone else, she correctly predicted that Ron Wyden would beat Gordon Smith in his bid for U.S. Senate.
Elaine and Arnold CoganFamily archive
Wyden recalled Cogan s impact in Portland: Elaine leaves an indelible legacy of accomplishment that transformed both the Jewish community in Portland and our entire city into better places for everybody with her many civic contributions and skills as an author and journalist. But my lasting memories of Elaine are just as much of her grace, good humor and kindness that made her like a second mom to me. She was always there for me and countless others to offer both a nosh and her good counsel. I will miss Elaine tremendously but take comfort amid the sadness that she and her beloved Arnold are now reunited.
For seven years, Cogan hosted a Sunday morning talk show on KGW radio. She would have guests on diverse range of subjects, usually related to public policy or things of public interest, Mark Cogan said.
Cogan influenced the Jewish community of Portland, serving on the board of the Neveh Shalom Synagogue as its first female president. She was also involved with Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education and the Jewish Review.
In her free time, Cogan baked. That s my weekend pleasure. Sunday afternoon I bake bread, she said. She forged family traditions that lasted for decades: hosting Shabbat dinners and Passover seders, taking her children to Ashland every year for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to the Rose Festival parade, or to see the fireworks on July 4.
She was fiercely determined, Mark Cogan said. She had a great passion for being in a leadership role. Any organization or body that she was affiliated with, she would always be the leader.
She is survived by her sister, Carole Furie; her children, Mark Cogan, Sue Van Brocklin, and Leonard Cogan; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will take place at 11:45 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 22, at Congregation Neveh Shalom, 2900 S.W. Peaceful Lane in Portland.
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