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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Erna Dora Meerscheidt Bouillon 
October 2, 1980 
Cassette 2, Side 2 
 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  00:01 
There we go. Okay. 
 
Erna Bouillon  00:06 
I've got Victor's death here, and when he was born, and when I married him. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  00:17 
Yeah, okay, I've already got that.  
 
Erna Bouillon  00:19 
Have you?  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  00:20 
Okay, I've already got that. Let's try a few other sort of things, what would you say your social 
environment was like as a girl, young woman?  
 
Erna Bouillon  00:36 
Oh, I was, I hate to say it, but I was very well liked. I got along fine, I had no troubles-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  00:45 
With your family and with everybody else?  
 
Erna Bouillon  00:48 
Yes, when I went to the family reunion in June of this year, the last five days of June, and I took 
my daughter, the one that didn't marry, who owns a beautiful home up on the hill here. I took her 
along, paid her way as my nursemaid, because I've got a broken hip, and I walked with that, and 
I-- And she made all the arrangements with the airplane, with the, with the hotel, and with the 
reunion thing. There were 250 guests at the reunion, and they asked me to make a speech, I have 
pictures of that. And, because I was-- And this cousin, Anna Meerscheidt, who went to the 
boarding school with us, was 91, she was four years older than I, and she was there, and I have 
pictures of all of that, and have it all written up. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  01:52 
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Let's see, did you only live in, how to put this? Okay, the first house you were, the house you 
were born in, that was the one you lived in until-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  02:05 
No I have another. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  02:06 
--until you went to Germany that first time? 
 
Erna Bouillon  02:08 
The first time. Then the second time we, my father had built a colonial home on South, North, 
South Alamo Street. And I have a picture of that, and I lived in there. And then we went to 
Germany the second time. And in between, while he was building this colonial home, he owned, 
it really was a pre runner of an apart, of a apartment house. They hadn't had anything like it in 
San Antonio, but it was all stores down below. And then this whole, we owned, we lived in the 
whole floor, we had 21 rooms. And, and we had a cook, and a laundress, and a boy who served 
and took care of my brother, Filipino I think he was. And we lived in that while the colonial 
house was built. Now that, that building was a pre runner of apartments, you know, it was-- 
Because the plan was to make four apartments out of this second floor. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  02:08 
I see. 
 
Erna Bouillon  02:08 
See, my father was practicing his architecture all the time. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  03:41 
Yeah, I guess you'd also say somewhat land developer. So, a question there, how many shared a 
room? But I take it, that sounds like you each had your own bedrooms, pretty much. 
 
Erna Bouillon  03:59 
We did, and then we had a play room and an ironing room, and we wore all these little starched 
dresses and had a little laundress, you know, and she was ironing all day long. And, and my 
sister, Ilma, was born in that apartment house, I remember hearing the cries in the middle of the 
night, it sounded like ducks quacking. And I ran to my mother's and father's bedroom and said, 
"There are ducks in the house." And my father took me by the hand and led me out and said, he 
said, "No, the doctor is here, and you're going to have, we're going to have a new baby in the 
house," and it turned out to be my sister, Ilma. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  04:46 
I see. And okay, so this was in between the two trips-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  04:52 
Two homes. Then we lived in the colonial home. And now, they built on, a front on that, 
enlarged it-- 
 
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Susan Lynn Ehlers  05:02 
On the colonial one? 
 
Erna Bouillon  05:03 
On the colonial home. I mean, we didn't do that, my father didn't, but they did it, made a business 
venture out of it, because that district has changed and turned into a business district. So, they 
built lots of stores out in front.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  05:13 
Thing is, even with a big house like that, a number of, so many years ago that, did you have 
indoor plumbing? 
 
Erna Bouillon  05:28 
Oh, yes, we did. And we had, they got, we had-- First we had a lamp light, you know, lamps with 
globes on them and wicks. And then we got electricity, I remember that, in around 1900, I think, 
we got electricity, maybe it was a little before and-- I may be mistaken on that date, but it was 
around that time. Now, I wrote a book, I'll show you. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  06:14 
Okay, well, the thing is, unless you're getting tired-- The thing is, actually, before you get into 
that, well, I'm just wondering, would you care to go in more about what your life was like as a 
girl, a young woman? Or would you care to go in more for what it was like after your children 
were raised and you got into the interior design work? 
 
Erna Bouillon  06:45 
Well, my life, I got along fine, as I said. I was house manager at the, in the Gamma Phi Beta 
Sorority, and I graduated with honors, and I had made so many friends, I have pictures of all of 
them in this book I wrote, The Story of My Life, I have pictures of those friends. And one friend 
that I made in San Antonio, before we left there, when I was 13, she became the sweetheart of 
Seattle, a poet laureate. She was, married a very wealthy lawyer and judge at a very early age, 
and he, he finished educating her. He taught to her and she-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  07:37 
Her name was? 
 
Erna Bouillon  07:40 
Aline Badger Carter.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  07:44 
The judge's name was Carter? 
 
Erna Bouillon  07:46 
Yeah, Judge Carter. And I saw their home when I was down in San Antonio, it's a big home, I've 
got pictures of it. And she was dead, but I saw her when I went on a trip 43 years after I left San 
Antonio at the age of 13. I went down with my older sister and her husband, we drove down to 
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San Antonio. That was 43 years later, and I saw Aline then, and was in that big home. And up on 
the roof of that big home, she had a, she studied the stars. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  08:37 
Astronomy? 
 
Erna Bouillon  08:37 
Uh-huh, and she had a-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  08:39 
Telescope? 
 
Erna Bouillon  08:39 
Telescope and everything up there on the roof of that house, it was a mansion. And he died and 
left her with a lot of money, and then she wrote this poetry, and she got picked as-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  08:39 
You said the poet laureate of Seattle, but you mean the poet laureate of San Antonio. 
 
Erna Bouillon  09:00 
Mm-hmm, and she was called the sweetheart of San Antonio, she was a beautiful girl. When we 
went to Germany, to that boarding school, her mother--no, her mother was dead, it was her 
grandmother--just begged my father to take her along. But she had a sister they called Bl-awn-
che, not Blanche, but Bl-awn-che, and-- Spelled the same way. And she had died of a ruptured 
appendix, and they didn't know what to do in those days, you know. And my father knew that all 
they had left was Aline, the family, the aunt and the grandmother, and they, my father didn't 
want to take the chance of taking her along, having something happen to her, he'd feel so 
responsible. So, he refused to take her. Then he took this, this cousin, Anna, because they had a 
big family and a lot of children and everything was hotsy totsy. Now, what was the other thing 
you wanted me to talk about?  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  10:18 
Well-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  10:20 
That hasn't been fastened.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  10:22 
Yeah. 
 
Erna Bouillon  10:22 
Do you suppose it recorded? 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  10:24 
Yes, let's check it.  
 
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Erna Bouillon  10:26 
I bet it-- [Tape stops and starts]. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  10:32 
Well, what I was asking you was, what do you think, to you, would be more important for me 
and for, you know, any other woman who might hear this to know about your life as an interior 
designer, or your life as a homemaker or?  
 
Erna Bouillon  10:48 
Well, life, I think the life as a decorator. I went to Rudolph Schaeffer's at the age of 68-- 58 and 
finished at 60, and as I say I had, the mansion was my first job, and-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  11:07 
So you, you'd [?already been?] a wife and mother before that? 
 
Erna Bouillon  11:11 
Oh, yes, I'd raised those children and they were gone-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  11:14 
[Inaudible]. 
 
Erna Bouillon  11:14 
Yeah, and they were all over the world, they were gone. And now the boy lives in Seattle, and 
Joe lives on Bainbridge, and Pat lives up on the hill here. And, but my life as a decorator, you 
see, I decorated for Henry Schmitz, he was the president in the University in Washington, and 
the mansion was in Washington Park. He was drowned on a fishing trip and so Odegaard became 
president. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  11:14 
Oh, so he was the one just before Odegaard then?  
 
Erna Bouillon  11:18 
Yes, and, and Odegaard kept me on. I decorated that mansion, I enlarged the dining room, I 
changed the library, I put the servants up on the third floor and made the library bigger. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  12:15 
How, How did you get that-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  12:17 
Job? Simply by-- See, I knew the Schmitzes, and they had seen my home, before I went, then 
they knew I'd won a scholarship for my good work, and that was enough for them, and they 
asked me to do it. And I said, "Well, I just, just finished school," take a big job like that, it just 
floored me, you know? She says, "I know you're good, you're going to do it." So I did. Then 
Odegaard kept me on for six more years, then I did the Gamma Phi Beta house, the sorority I had 
belonged to, and I worked on that for 10 years. No one ever questioned anything I did.  
 
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Susan Lynn Ehlers  12:59 
10 years doing the interior design?  
 
Erna Bouillon  13:01 
Yes, every summer I worked on it, I enlarged it.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  13:05 
You would do it a little bit here or a little-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  13:07 
No, I did more than a little bit. I designed the furniture for the dining room, there were either six 
or eight tables that I had a man make with collapsible, real brass legs and a hard wood finish. 
And they could-- There were eight, they could put four on a little wheel cart, and there was a 
wall closet, and I designed all that, and, and they could be wheeled in there, and they could dance 
in that big dining room. And I put in shuttered windows, I enlarged the kitchen and made that all 
over, I made living quarters for the cook so she wouldn't have to go out at night, and I made the 
entrance was at the north end of the building, the outside entrance, and I put it at the south end. 
When the architect, I called the architect and told him why I wanted to do this, and he gave me 
permission, he didn't even come out and superintend it. I said that when, when it was at the north 
end, they came by bus, see, they didn't have street cars, I guess. So anyway, they came by bus, 
and they came around that corner, the north end corner, so the entrance was there. So, I 
incorporated the entrance hall into the room and back and into the living room, and made the 
room and back of the living room into a downstairs smoking room for the girls. Then I put the 
entrance at the south end, because they got up, got off at 45th and came up and walked to 17th 
Northeast--Yeah, I think it was 17th Northeast, yeah, the bus goes on 14th and 17th Northeast--
and made, enlarged, what had been a closet for coats. I made into an entrance, see, and with 
colonial columns, and then I put a coat closet in on this side, and I made the downstairs, I called 
it the dating room for the when the girls' dates came. That had been, that wasn't there, I just built 
that on. And up above it, I built on for the house mother, and that gave her a bedroom so that she 
just had one room, she had to live in and sleep in it. And that gave her a living room and a 
bedroom. And they all just gave me permission to do these things. And for 10 years I worked for 
that sorority, never reporting to anyone what I was going to do. I took the money they earned 
during the from there, what they charged the girls to live there, and they'd give it to me in the 
bank, and I would work, spend it, spend it and so. And when I go to the President's mansion, 
when I go to the Gamma Phi house, and then the widow of Henry Schmitz, the first president, I 
did, her house all over in Broadmoor, it runs down to the canal, I guess-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  16:43 
May I ask you what sort of style you did that sorority in? 
 
Erna Bouillon  16:48 
Well, that room there, that you saw, is exactly the right dimensions for that Gamma Phi house. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  16:58 
I mean, is it called colonial or Georgian, or are you just-- Anything in particular like that?  
 
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Erna Bouillon  17:04 
Well, maybe you'd call it Georgian. It wasn't contemporary, I did do some contemporary rooms 
in other places. It's traditional, I'd call it, call it traditional. I decorated only the largest homes in 
the best districts, The Highlands, the Laurelhurst, the best part of Capitol Hill, down Magnolia, 
the best section, did only the big homes. Not because I-- Because those people came to me, not 
because I was looking for them, they came to me. And I remember being in the [?wholesale 
house?], they used to be up around Broadway, now they went south of town, decorating houses 
and young decorators, young girls, you know, first job, "How do you collect your money? They 
don't pay us. We do the work." I said, "What kind of people do you take? You shouldn't decorate 
for a just newly married couple. They haven't the money to pay for a decorator. You should take 
people of experience. Let these young people, yes, let them study the show windows and any 
nice place they can and learn what they like, so that when they are established, their husband has 
a good job, and they have had maybe a child or two, and they know what they want and what 
they like. Then--and have the money to pay for it--then take the job." And they looked at me, I 
said, "If," I used to hold up my bills, "If I sent out a bill today, day after tomorrow, [inaudible] 
along and took the mails, there'd be a check and I'd be embarrassed. I didn't need the money that 
badly, but they all, you know, were reliable people, so I'd hold off sending them a bill for three 
weeks maybe, and then send them a bill, because it embarrassed me less," you know, but they 
were, all of them were established people. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  19:31 
So mostly you got your jobs by word of mouth? 
 
Erna Bouillon  19:34 
Word of mouth. I never had a business card. I did make out, let's see, I had stationary with Erna 
M Weeks Interior Design, because I wrote to the wholesale houses back east, and I had to have 
stationery. I had that, but I never had a decorating card. And I would tell my clients, "Now, I'll 
work like a dog for you all winter long, but in the summers, they're my own because I'm going to 
travel, and if you don't want to wait for me, that's all right with me, just get another decorator. If 
you want to wait till I come back in fall, I'll come and I'll work for you, just as hard as I did the 
first time." And not one of them got another decorator, they all waited for me, but--  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  20:27 
How did you approach figuring out how to do a job? Did, you know, [?say?]-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  20:36 
Well, I hadn't-- 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  20:34 
 [Inaudible] the first [inaudible]-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  20:35 
I.  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  20:35 
--wanted, or you just went in, looked and say, "Hey, this should go there." 
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Erna Bouillon  20:38 
No. I had an interesting experience, which might explain it to you. My friend, I had a friend, she 
happened to be my only Catholic friend, and she was a lovely girl, and she married a man, he 
was a [?salmon?] broker. And socially I knew them, I danced with them and everything else, 
when I was still married to Harold, and, before he died. And they asked me, Marguerite asked 
me to come and see about their house and their living room. So, I went over there, and she said, 
"Be here at nine o'clock," and I thought, "My that's early, but I'll be there." And I looked it over, 
and I said-- And I moved, I moved things around-- "And we'll put in a recreation dining room, 
it'll be one," but they had a corner fireplace over there. And I, I moved all this furniture around 
and when-- And her husband, he was, you couldn't tell him anything, and he, he blurted out, "I'm 
going, I'm [inaudible] [?leave?], don't, don't want, like, any of it." I said, "All right, that's just 
fine with me. And I'll tell you what, what we'll do, we'll leave it as it is for a week or 10 days, 
and then I'll come back and you tell me what you don't like, and we'll talk it over." And when I 
came back in a week or 10 days, he was there, "Leave it all as it is and go do the bedrooms and 
back and do all of that." So he went out, then he went right off to work, he didn't wait, he just 
said that in a gruff way, you know, he was embarrassed about admitting that he was wrong. And 
when he left, his wife just burst into peals of laughter. I said, "What are you laughing at?" "He's 
never given in to anyone before. He always runs everything. I wish I could have my [inaudible]," 
and we both sat down and laughed and laughed and laughed. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  23:04 
The idea that you just sort of took the furniture they had moved it around?  
 
Erna Bouillon  23:07 
Yes, and then, of course, I added some new things and, and changed pictures and mirrors and 
what have you. But you have to start somewhere. And I brought fabrics out, and I'd study at 
night in my own apartment, apartment. I was living most of that time in the apartments on 11th 
Avenue, they were beautiful apartments, I can't think of the name of them right now. And I 
would, in my living room, I'd put a [inaudible], I'd moved my furniture more or less like theirs 
was, and I put a sample of cloth there that I'd gotten at the wholesale house, and something else 
there, something else there. Then I'd say, "No, that isn't right. I'll go back to the wholesale house 
in the morning and get something else for this chair." And so I worked hard, I worked, I'd come 
home and eat and work until nine or 10 o'clock at night, figuring out what I'd do the next day. 
And that-- But it gave me a great deal of pleasure. You know, if you're enjoying yourself, you're 
not really working. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  24:24 
So then, you pretty much set your own prices as--  
 
Erna Bouillon  24:27 
Yes, yes, I always charged 10% of the cost of the job, and that really was very reasonable, but it 
gave me, because I was doing big jobs and money was worth, you know, [?and this?], it was all 
different in that day and age. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  24:57 
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So, you pretty much retired from doing that?  
 
Erna Bouillon  24:59 
Oh, they won't let you charge anything here. And the first thing that Rudolph Schaeffer taught 
us, never do a job that isn't, that you can't charge for. And I'll tell you why, because if you don't, 
when you're out, gone, they'll change something. And then their friends will come and they'll 
say, "Who did your decorating?" And they'll say, "Erna-- Erna Weeks did it. She's an interior 
decorator," and maybe they wouldn't like it at all. And you'd come back and see it, and you 
wouldn't like it because they had mixed styles. I helped a woman right across the hallway, she's 
the only one over here, I didn't charge her. But she had a car, and she'd take us out to the north 
end, to the, some of the studios where you could buy things there, some of the nice stores, I don't 
know the names of them now, and we'd buy things. And her apartment was lovely. And one day 
I went in there, and she had, she had sold one of the chairs, and she'd put a great big, well, it was 
a chair more or less like a swing chair, though, all in white, and a sofa all in white, and it just 
spoiled the room, this beautiful furniture. Someone had died in the building here, and she just 
rushed over there and bought all the stuff. And then I said, "Now, why did you do that? You've 
mixed styles and your room is a mess." "Well, I thought my son would buy it." And I said, 
"Well, why didn't you ask him first, and then if he said he wants--" He didn't want it, see, and it 
was on her hands. And that taught me that Rudolph Schaeffer had been right in saying-- Now, if 
she'd paid for that job, she wouldn't so easily have gone and bought something else, you know, 
but she didn't pay me a commission for that. I wouldn't have taken it. You're not allowed to, in 
the first place, here in the building, you don't charge for anything. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  27:35 
[Inaudible]. Here, the thing is, we've been going at it for about two and a half hours. 
 
Erna Bouillon  27:39 
Have we?  
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  27:39 
Yeah and the thing is that perhaps something a little more about your married life and stuff like 
that that I'd like to-- 
 
Erna Bouillon  27:54 
Well. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  27:55 
--get into sometime later. 
 
Erna Bouillon  27:56 
Oh, I see. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  27:57 
Yeah, might be a better [inaudible] because then we can [inaudible]. 
 
Erna Bouillon  28:00 
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Yeah. The second marriage is always the easiest, because you don't have children and the man is 
established or he wouldn't ask you to marry him. And I didn't work, I knew I had to give up my 
decorating because I couldn't do that and work at night on my decorating, he didn't marry me for 
that, he married me for a companionship. And we went dancing three times a week, and he was a 
wonderful dancer, and I just loved dancing. We had a wonderful time. 
 
Susan Lynn Ehlers  28:31 
Well, all I can say-- [Tape stops and starts]. Erna Bouillon, interviewed by Susan Ehlers for 
Washington Women's Heritage Project, October 2, 1980, end of tape two, side four. 
 