(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

I was born in Bogota Colombia on March 2, 1945 at ~ 8:30 pm.My parents were Elena Lockwood Brineman and John (Jack) Hower Brineman. I joined my older sister Margaret Anne Brineman who was 2 ½ years older.My parents said they named me Elena Louise after my mother so they could call me Elena Lou my grandfather’s pet name for my mother.Our family was in Bogota because my Dad was a geologist exploring for oil with Socony Vacuum Corp which later became Mobile Oil.He was exempt from serving in World War II because he was doing a strategic job in a strategic industry – hunting for oil.

In early 1950 my father was transferred to Dallas Texas due to sustained, serious illness in Bogota.He had malaria and polio, both of which he survived, but they put a damper on his ability to do geological field work.

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

Dallas grammar school – Letot

House: 2800 Northwest Highway, Dallas, Texas – 2 ½ acres covered with mature, producing native pecan trees, lots of room for playing, tree house, play house, sandbox

Friends in neighborhood – Aids and Pellillos

Begin junior high (9th) – Rusk

Bachman Lake, swimming, UU church

Lived under segregation most of time in Texas with transition to unsegregated by end

Move to Guatemala late fall 1958

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

American School Guatemala, Guatemala – 9th, 10th

11th grade by correspondence started in Guatemala, continued across US headed for Calgary Canada in spring 1960 arriving in May.

Volunteer work with El Nido – home for children whose parents couldn’t take care of them - and at INCAP (Nutrition Institute of Central America and Panama) playing with and caring for malnourished children

Tikal, Washactun, Picaya, Atitlan, Central American Games (El Salvador), Antigua Easter Week, Xmas Markets

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

Summer school in Calgary to try to catch up with Canadian prerequisites to graduate

12th grade Calgary, Canada – didn’t graduate

YMCA summer camp outside Edmonton Alberta

Applied to college anyway – accepted at Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington

First summer after freshmen year in college – Banff School of Fine Arts

1964 Mom and Dad moved to Houston, Texas leaving John and me with friends (Smiths) until we both went to Whitman for college

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

Interested in both art and nutrition – decided I needed to figure out if I was going to be a scientist or artist

Went to Banff School of Fine Arts first summer to help me sort out my future between art and science – decided I would rather be a mediocre scientist than a mediocre artist and felt I couldn’t make a big enough difference in the problems I saw as a teen in Guatemala with art.

Biology major with emphasis in botany and microbiology and parasitology

Friends: Alice Lindahl, Allan Legge

Graduated in 1967 and went to Calgary for vacation after graduation – turned my car over into ditch headed to friends home (Legges) and broke my collar bone.

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

Worked in Dr. Scrimshaw’s nutrition laboratory for year while I made sure that I wanted to go to graduate school in nutrition

Learned to live lean

Apartment with Mary Maginnis a Whitman friend

Randy Nelson – Boston Pops, trips around eastern US and Canada

(Elena wrote a Brief History of her life and these are her words)

Late summer 1968 went to Corvallis to begin graduate school at Oregon State University.I had decided I didn’t want to go to grad school on East Coast as I found I was not as comfortable with the people there, particularly at MIT and Harvard, so chose to go to Corvallis because I had friends there.

Lived with Alice Lindahl in apartment at first

Began masters in nutrition at the School of Home Economics in fall 1968, received two year NSF grant after first year and completed most of required course work after first year of grant.

For my thesis major professor wanted me to apply a method for B6 analysis adapted for their lab by another grad student, but the method didn’t work and department professors wouldn’t believe me. I also was interested at looking at affect of oral contraceptives on folic acid levels and professors were afraid of a study where unmarried women might be taking OCs and said that their lab was focused on B6. I realized that the frustration of working in that department threatened to dampen my interest in nutrition and I left, giving up the second year of grant. I went to work at Food Technology Laboratory for a year.After a year my major professor called me and offered to let me join a study she was doing on B6 and OCs and look at folate in the same study subjects.She also sent me an article by the original developer of B6 method they had wanted me to us didn’t work because the buffers weren’t stable – exactly what I had repeatedly told them.No one ever said anything to me about that article. Worked in nutrition lab and became an assistant professor to support myself while I spent a year doing my thesis research and writing my thesis. Finally defended my thesis and got my degree in 1975.

Met and got to know Phil Larsen in 1969

Moved to shared house with Phil and Wayne and Elaine Esaias, Alice Lindahl and eventually Jim Haefner in 1970 and lived there for four years until late 1974.Phil and I separated after 4 years and I moved to another house.

Lots of hiking/backpacking camping, mountain climbing, cross-country skiing, kayaking with a whole group of friends of Phil and Wayne from Oceanography Department