Rita Harren Bordwell, a Surprising Local Historian By Lauren
Rita Harren Bordwell, a Surprising Local Historian
There are four ways to write a woman’s life: the woman herself
may tell it, in what she chooses to call an autobiography; she
may tell it in what she chooses to call fiction; a biographer may
write the woman’s life in what is called a biography; or the
woman may write her own life in advance of living it,
unconsciously, and without recognizing or naming the process.
– Carolyn Heilbrun
When I was given a chance to write about the history of
Napa in 2003, I wanted to include information about
labor. I went to the Historical Society and asked for the
folder with that title. It contained only one article, by
somebody named Rita Bordwell. Women have often been
community builders but rarely published historians. I
discovered that Rita Bordwell had been both. In that way,
she became a role model to me as I was learning to write
history.
Rita was born in 1885. Most women from that era
appeared in the newspaper only twice: upon marriage and
upon death. But in her seventh decade of life, Rita wrote
two histories. One article recounted how “a friend of
mine, a member of a union, rang me up one day and asked
me if I would be interested in a position as secretary [at
the] Central Labor and Building Trades Council.” She
accepted the job and recorded for us the plight of jobless
workers in 1938.She described how there was always a kettle of beans and
stew to share on the stove, how some families donated
blankets, and how her manager at the Council, Mr. Bobst,
put cots in his rumpus room while other families camped in
tents on jobsites. "Work was so scarce and we had so many
unemployed workers that we had to divide the work, giving
each [man] two days and Mr. Bobst would say, ‘Well that
will give them bread.’”
Rita Bordwell also wrote a history of what would become
the Napa Fire Department and organized a firefighter
museum to preserve its history. Former Fire Chief Lee
Mitchell told me:
Many of us old-timers knew Rita Bordwell. When I was
first hired by the City of Napa in 1965, she used to stop by
for a visit with the “fire laddies.” She always had a story
to tell and would remind us that her father was one of the
original volunteer firefighters on the Pioneer Engine
Company.
Bordwell’s history of firefighting in Napa covers the years
from l859 to l962. She tells how in early Napa, fighting
fires was a strenuous and risky community effort:
Women and girls pumped, men passed the
buckets…. My father served between l884 and
l886. He was injured by a falling burning wall and
resigned at the request of Mother—but he never
missed a fire as long as he lived.
Former Fire Captain Bob Foley described how Rita
Bordwell made sure that the firefighters were featured in
the museum: “She shamed the guys into getting their
photos [taken].” In her own hand, she inscribed the name
of each firefighter on the back of each of the 589
57photographs she collected. The museum would not open
until twenty years after she died. It has been closed since
the 2014 earthquake, but in December 2025, the Napa
City Firefighters Association purchased a building at the
corner of Soscol Avenue and Seventh Street where the
museum will reopen.
Rita Bordwell attended almost every Board of Supervisors
meeting and kept copious notes. The Napa Register’s
obituary of February 22, l975, reads: “Napa County’s
ageless ‘sixth Supervisor’ Rita Harren Bordwell
…enjoyed a noteworthy ‘career’ in the Napa Valley as the
wife of a contractor, secretary to labor organizations…
and friend to many, a kind word on her lips for others
every waking moment of the day.”
For everything that we know about Rita, there are ten
things that we don't know. Where did Rita shop, and get
her hair done? What could her diaries and letters tell us?
Are there photographs of her home at 1568 Palmer Street?
What meals did she cook in her own kitchen? Barely three
months after Rita’s death, on my first trip to Napa, I stood
at a phone booth in front of the courthouse at Second and
Coombs, a block away from her birthplace, looking for a
place to rent. I would teach women’s history for three
decades at the community college before I learned about
“Napa’s Great Lady“.
Sources:
“Napa County labor movement was born of depression”
Napa Register, March 30th, 1963.
“Firefighters Honor ‘Napa’s Great Lady’” by Astrid
Edington, Napa Register, October 4, l969.
Obituary, “Sixth Supervisor Rita Bordwell Dies,” Napa
Register, February 22, l975.
59History of the Napa Fire Department from l859 to l962,
by Rita Harren Bordwell, 1962.
Writing a Woman’s Life by Carolyn Heilbrun, Ballantine,
l988.