Mrs. Adolph Weinzirl: Tattooed Lady

It does seem logical, when you think about it, that the chairman of the Dept. of Public Health would have married a Tattooed Lady. All that time, hanging about tattoo parlors, making sure inspections were up to date. But it's something you don't really consider until you run across the "Northwest" section from the Sunday Oregonian, dated March 15, 1981--and see the cover story.


Elizabeth Henrietta Halberstadt Weinzirl of Gresham was born on June 2, 1902, in Brooklyn, N.Y. She moved with her family to Seattle in 1913 and was a graduate of the University of Washington. She married Dr. Adolph Weinzirl in 1925, and the couple moved to Portland in 1938. Adolph went on to become Portland's City Health Officer and chair of the Dept. of Public Health at the University of Oregon Medical School. He died in 1968.

In the Northwest article, Elizabeth talks about Adolph's interest in tattoos and his suggestion that she start getting them. She got the first one when she was 45, and stopped getting new ones when Adolph died. Along with flowers, birds, butterflies, fish, and a spiderweb, she had the words "True Love" inscribed on her right wrist in dark blue ink.

Elizabeth died in 1993 at the age of 91.