Amy Kathleen Gregersen

1972–1996

There was no one like Amy.

It’s not often that a person knows exactly what she wants to do in life by the age of twenty-four. Or, to establish an action plan to achieve her lifetime goal. But Amy knew for certain that she was meant to assist Latinos living in metropolitan Portland.

Amy’s career began to take shape her freshman year at St. Mary’s Academy. She promised her mother, the Francophile, she would take two years of high school Spanish then study French for two years (breaking from the tradition set by her elder sisters who obeyed their mother’s directive to study French throughout high school). The minute Amy stepped into the Spanish Iclassroom she became enthralled with the language. As her Spanish instructor, Senora Sue Harris, explained, “Amy just jumped into Spanish, not always conjugating the verbs correctly or using proper gender endings, she just jumped in and spoke the language.” Amy made up skits in Spanish to get her classmates excited about the language. She even did the opening monologue from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off —in Spanish—in her pajamas for authenticity!

The summer before her senior year, Amy devised a plan to study in Valencia, Spain through International Summer Stays. Her mother suggested she pack her Spanish–English dictionary, but she breezily replied, “Oh no, I’ve had three years of high school Spanish. I’ll do fine.” Well, the second night after her arrival, she frantically called home to see if her books could be Fed-Exed to Spain. It seems in thanking her host family for their hospitality, she declared she was excited to be spending the summer with them. Except, the Spanish word she used for “excited” meant she was sexually excited. She spent mornings visiting the cathedrals, museums, and historical monuments—and during afternoon siestas she frantically read her Spanish language books to figure out what everyone was saying. That summer trip shaped Amy’s life. She became enthralled with everything Spanish: the people, the music, the art, the history—the entire culture.

Amy majored in Spanish and International Studies at the University of Oregon graduating in 1994 after spending her senior year in Seville. She negotiated her own living arrangements in Seville to live in an apartment with Spanish women instead of college-provided housing, so that she would speak only Spanish and improve her language skills. Her senior seminar paper was on the changing characterization of women and the family in selected works of 20th-century Spanish literature.

After college graduation, Amy wasted no time finding work in her chosen field. First, she worked for Northwest Natural Gas Company in the customer service department handling calls from Spanish-speaking customers. Then, she was the coordinator for Hispanic Relations for a company that offered telephone service to those who did not qualify for “mainstream” phone service. The company encouraged sales representatives to sell ancillary products such as call forwarding, call waiting, etc. It was a good thing that Amy was the only one who spoke Spanish in the company, because she advised her callers not to purchase these extras, but to save their money, get on their feet, and then consider buying the options. She became so fluent and conversational in Spanish that many of the customers used her as a resource for local directions or advice on navigating the social systems of Portland.

Amy knew she wanted to make a bigger contribution to Latinos in our community. Her life’s ambitions were crystallized when she took a job as office manager for a Hillsboro attorney, Angelo Gomez. Mr. Gomez’s law practice was dedicated to helping Hispanics with legal issues. Amy’s job was to schedule appointments and brief clients before they met with Mr. Gomez. As usual, she took the job to heart, and not only performed her duties, but completely reorganized the office files and routine procedures for better efficiency. She became sympathetic to the enormous need for legal and interpretive services for the Hispanics in Oregon. She planned to enroll in law school and began studying for the LSAT exams.

Meanwhile, Amy realized she needed to take care of practical matters and earn a better salary.She was hired as the Spanish interpreter for Washington County Health Department, where she made home visits with nurses to interpret medical advice to Hispanic patients and caregivers. When she was hired, her supervisor, Mrs. Roberta Hellman, said she knew Amy soon would be moving on, that she was intelligent and ambitious, but she also knew Amy would make a significant contribution for whatever period of time she worked there.

That time was too short—not by design. Amy was killed in an automobile accident while attending a friend’s wedding in Montana. She drove with three college friends to a summer fishing lodge of her dear college friend, Michelle Caprini. The girls held a traditional bachelorette party on a summer evening. The next day they hiked the mountainside near Yellowstone National Park and promised to be friends forever, no matter where life took them. That evening Amy told the bride-to-be to go to the rehearsal dinner and she would follow after she showered and dressed. She was driving ten miles to the lodge for the pre-nuptial celebration, when a man driving a van crossed into her lane and ended Amy’s life.

There was no one like Amy. You would have loved her.

Written by Kathleen Sabel, Amy’s mother