Vera Katz (née Pistrak; August 3, 1933 – December 11, 2017) was an American Democratic politician in the state of Oregon. She was the first woman to serve as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives and was the 49th mayor of Portland, Oregon's most populous city. She grew up in New York City, moving to Portland in 1962, and was elected to the Oregon House in 1972. She served as mayor from 1993 to 2005. Early life Vera Katz was born on August 3, 1933, as Vera Pistrak in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her parents, Elizar ("Lazar Michael Pistrak"; 1896–1985) and Raissa (1896–1986), fled Moscow, Russia, after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, settling in Germany. As Jewish Mensheviks, the family, including Vera's elder sister, Senaida ("Zena"; born March 5, 1925), fled for France when Vera was two months old as Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power. Once World War II began and Hitler invaded France, the family of four fled over the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain on foot. After a time the family was able to emigrate to the United States, sailing on the ship Nea Hellas in 1940. They settled in Brooklyn. Vera's parents later divorced when she was 12 years old, and her mother was known as Raissa Goodman for the remainder of her life. Education Katz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brooklyn College in 1955 and a Master of Arts degree in 1957. She worked as a camp counselor in upstate New York where she met her future husband, Mel Katz, a waiter and artist. They moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1962 after selecting Portland from a list that included Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. After they moved, she gave birth to a son, Jesse. Jesse went on to graduate from Lincoln High School in 1981 and became a journalist in Los Angeles; his memoir, The Opposite Field, was published in October 2009. Early political activities Katz became involved in politics in the late 1960s while working on the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy had antagonized many in Portland through his aggressive pursuit of local corruption as United States Attorney General. Katz moved on to support the nationwide grape boycott organized in the late 1960s by Cesar Chavez to support migrant agricultural workers. She then protested and picketed the City Club of Portland over their male-only membership requirement in the early