Buena Margason Maris Mockmore Steinmetz was born in Salem, Oregon on 2 August 1898. She attended the University of Oregon briefly before her marriage and George Washington University for a short time during her marriage to Homer Maris, a Tacoma educator and author of "Carry Me Back," the OSC alma mater. Homer was the brother of long time director of extension at OSU, Paul V. Maris. After her husband was killed in an auto/bicycle accident in 1933, Steinmetz attended the University of Puget Sound, receiving a BA degree in 1936. She taught school in Tacoma for a year before coming to Oregon State College, where she earned a MS degree in Home Economics in 1939. Steinmetz taught family relations and was an extension specialist in child development and child family life at OSU before becoming Dean of Women in 1941, serving in that capacity until 1948. In 1943 she took a leave of absence to work in the highest woman's job at the Hanford atomic project for the DuPont Co., returning to OSC in 1944. Steinmetz received a War Department citation for her work.
In 1946 she married Dr. Charles Mockmore, the head of civil engineering at OSC. When Dr. Mockmore died in 1953, she joined the staff at Iowa State University as extension specialist in child development and family life. While there Steinmetz developed a program of parent-teenager understanding by speaking to high school assemblies first, followed by parents' meetings. In 1960, she returned to Oregon after marrying Avery Steinmetz. She headed the Oregon Home Economics Association for two years and was active in the American Association of University Women. On 18 December 1967 she passed away in Portland. Steinmetz was survived by her husband, Avery; a daughter, Mrs. Marjorie Maris Peterson; four stepchildren: Mrs. Charlotte Mockmore Spring, Regina T. Mockmore, William E. Steinmetz and Mrs. Gretchen E. Bunnell.
From the guide to the Buena Maris Mockmore Papers, 1916-1969, (Oregon State University University Archives)
