Zimiri Parvin Brown was a composer and professor of music who lived in Salem and Portland, Oregon during the latter part of his life. He was born in Ripley County, Indiana in 1843, served in the Civil War in 64th and 151st Illinois Infantry, and married Addie Sutton in 1866. He studied music from 1868 to 1874, and became the director of music at the State Normal School of California (now San Jose State University) in 1875. In 1883 he was appointed Dean of the College of Music at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, a post he held until his move to Portland in 1906. He was also director of the Albany Conservatory of Music in Albany, Oregon. In Portland he helped to found the Northwestern Normal School of Music and Art. He was an expert on harmony and published many compositions including The wide world knows the Portland Rose .
In 1890, Zimiri Parvin's daughter Mamie married James Nassau Brown (1857-1912), a Portland attorney. Brown was the son of Martin Brown (1809-1902) and Susan Jane Goddard Brown (1819-1868). He was a native of Iowa and lived in Missouri and Idaho before graduating from Willamette University Law School in 1888. He practiced law in Heppner, Oregon, served in the Oregon State Legislature from 1893-1898, and later established a law practice in Portland and Salem.
A son of James and Mamie Brown, Vivian Z. Brown, became a dentist in the U. S. Army Dental Corps. He graduated from Portland's Lincoln High School in 1911 and from North Pacific College in 1917. In that year he married Verne Clawson (b. 1889), the daughter of Walter and Nella Clawson. She had graduated from Portland's Washington High School in 1910 and attended the Northwest Normal School of Music and Art. Vivian Brown became an officer in the U.S. Army Dental Corps in the 1920s and was promoted to Colonel during World War II. Among his children was Walter Zimiri Brown (b. 1922).
From the guide to the Brown, Clawson, and Parvin Family Papers, 1739-1978, 1885-1941, (Oregon Historical Society)
