Pauley Hall, erected in 1959 as a residence for 107 men, was named in memory of Elbert E. Pauley and his wife, Ellen E. Pauley, and in recognition of the gifts of their son Edwin W. Pauley and his wife, Barbara.

Elbert E. Pauley was an oil refinery engineer in the East who became a vice president of Standard Oil of Kentucky. Later in California he was owner of an oil company in his own name.

Edwin W. Pauley was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1903, and later with his family lived in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Georgia Military Academy, and then enrolled in Occidental College at the age of sixteen after his family moved to Pasadena. After two years at Occidental he transferred to the University of California where he received the Bachelor of Science degree in 1922 from the College of Commerce and Business Administration.

The life of Edwin W. Pauley was one of achievement in several fields. In business oil was his major interest, first associated with his father, then on his own as an independent oil operator culminating in Pauley Petroleum, Inc.

In politics Mr. Pauley was an adviser to four Democratic Presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. A signal honor came with appointment by President Truman as the United States Representative on the Allied Commission on Reparations, with the rank of Ambassador.

Mr. Pauley was a regent of the University of California for thirty-two years, including two terms as chairman. He was elected to the Occidental Board of Trustees in 1963 and served until his death in 1981. His interest in higher education is reflected not only in Pauley Hall on the Occidental campus, but also in the Pauley Ballroom in the student union at Berkeley and in the UCLA Pauley Pavilion.

In the Los Angeles community Mr. Pauley's civic activities were legion -- the Chamber of Commerce, the World Affairs Council, the Music Center, and numerous other bodies.

Mrs. Edwin W. Pauley, the former Barbara Jean McHenry, also had a record of many civic and cultural achievements. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was vice president of the student body and president of the Class of 1938. Among the boards on which she served were the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Orphanage Guild, and the John Douglas French Foundation for Alzheimer's disease. She was a charter member of the Music Center's Blue Ribbon 400. She died in 2002 at the age of eighty-seven.

By Jean Paule