Tangren Alexander  1940-2021

"It's difficult to find the words to have a conversation with Death."-- Tangren, March 22, 2021.

Tangren Alexander was a beloved teacher, prolific writer, and imaginative photographer who studied the cosmos, created art and story with dolls, and was a mainstay of the vibrant lesbian feminist community of Southern Oregon. She was also a loving mother, sister, aunt, companion and friend, known for her generosity. Tangren left for the stars on March 26, 2021. After a health crisis of some weeks, she was in the company of loving family and friends for several days before her peaceful departure. She died in the home that she participated in building in the 1970s, close to trees and sky, home as well to several doll families in the elaborately crafted indoor dollhouses she created.

Tangren was born Jean Tangren Fitch, October 22, 1940, and was raised by her parents Chester and Jessie Fitch in Ashland, OR. Her childhood and young adult years were enriched by her special relationship with her maternal grandmother Pearl Barnes Tangren. Tangren graduated from Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR with a BA in Philosophy, and she was the first woman to receive a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oregon (1975). She was married to faculty colleague John Alexander; divorcing in the 1970s, they remained close friends and co-parented their daughter Marcella.

Tangren was a popular and innovative Professor of Philosophy at Southern Oregon University from 1974-2006, teaching a full spectrum of courses including her specialties: Ethics, Death and Dying, Feminism and Philosophy, Women and Ethics. Her focus expanded into Women’s Studies and  cross-disciplinary courses. She was an inspiration to so many of her students, several of whom became life-long friends.

Published in philosophy journals and lesbian feminist anthologies, Tangren was a frequent contributor to WomanSpirit magazine (1974-84), a foundational resource for the nascent women's spirituality movement. She was a co-founding member (1981) of the Southern Oregon Women Writers' Group, Gourmet Eating Society and Chorus, which continues to this day. 

Tangren left a voluminous heritage of writing, published and unpublished. Her work was informed by her dreams, her humor, her speculations on magic, philosophy, history. She wrote a number of books published privately or as yet unfinished. She studied and wrote about Queen Kristina of Sweden, and created two collections of family materials: poems from her great-grandmother, and stories from her mother's people. She was especially devoted to the actor Deborah Kerr, a muse and icon for Tangren from her early teen years until her final months of life. She left behind an as yet unpublished memoir Tenderly: Lesbian Meditations on Deborah Kerr. Tangren's 1980 philosophical journal, The Auto Biography of Deborah Carr is in the final stages of technical preparation for re-issue. 

Tangren channeled doll magic, creating remarkable "scenes, vignettes, stories enacted by dolls ... living much better lives than their manufacturers had in mind" (from Tangren's website). Tangren had dozens of small Barbie-esque dolls whom she transformed with costumes and ambiance, photographing them in feminist enactments of story and interaction, sometimes mythic, sometimes centered on social justice. Her website hosts eleven photo albums and two doll videos. The most recent entry involves dolls who gather, masked in pandemic gear, to insist that Black Lives Matter. These marvels and much more of Tangren's work can be seen at her website tangrenalexander.com.

Tangren was a uniquely gifted woman whose creative brilliance and sense of wonder will continue to inspire those who visit her treasures, even as her laughter peals across the galaxies, the infinite yet bounded universe she adored.

 

-- Bethroot Gwynn, with assistance from family members, from participants in the Southern Oregon Women Writers' Group, and from Tangren Alexander as creator of her website