Social Reformer. Ava Helen Miller Pauling is remembered as a human right activist and the wife of Linus Pauling, the recipient of two Nobel Prizes. Becoming involved with American politics at an early age, she was called a "New Dealer," promoting United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt's financial reforms from 1933 to 1939. She was active in women's rights, racial equality, and like her husband, international peace and disbarment of nuclear weapons. She is credited with introducing the subject to her husband. Their campaigning against nuclear weapons led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union, ending above-ground testing of nuclear weapons. Born the tenth child of twelve, she lived her early years on an Oregon farm. She was called "Ava Helen." Her father, a school teacher, was the son of a German immigrant, and her mother was described as a "free-thinker" and a member of the Oregon's suffragette movement. When she was thirteen, her parents divorced and she went to Salem to live with an older sister. She graduated from high school at the age of 15, enrolling into Oregon Agricultural College, what is now Oregon State University. Majoring in home economics, she met Pauling in 1922 when he was her chemistry instructor. She loved science. After both graduating in 1922, the couple married June 17, 1923. When her husband entered California Institute of Technology, she became his part-time laboratory assistant as it was science that brought the couple together. Their first child was born in 1925, and at that point, she accepted her destiny of being a full-time mother, managing a household for her husband's scientific work without domestic distractions. The couple had three sons and a daughter. In 1926, the couple, along with their son, traveled to Germany as her husband had received a Guggenheim Fellowship. It was there she learned how to be a scientist's wife. During World War II when Japanese-Americans were forced to live in internment camps, she joined The American Civil Liberties Union in protest of this action against American citizens. The couple received criticism, yet continued their support. She became involved with the "Union Now" movement promoting that all countries should unite into one great democratic government. She was involved in several Peace organizations for women, including Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams' the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, in which she served as vice president for three years. During the Cold War, she and her husband protested against nuclear armament and supported public education of the dangers of nuclear war. Her husband had to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, but they continued to protest. She was involved in the organization of the 1964 International Women's Strike for Peace Rally at the Hague. In 1961, she and her husband organized the Oslo Conference Against the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, a symposium in Oslo, Norway on the prevention of further development of nuclear weapons. Sixty scientists from 15 countries attended along with peace activists and authors. By this time, she had emerged from the shadow of her Nobel Prize recipient husband, becoming an important public figure in her own right. As an author, she published numerous articles for the periodicals published in the "Soviet Woman" and "The Peacemaker." The Oregon State University Press released in 2005 a detailed bibliography listing the couple's private papers in a six-volume series, "The Pauling Catalogue." Her pieces on peace, civil liberties and women's right are in Volume III. Her correspondence with First Lady Jackie Kennedy is included in the collection. One of her most noted papers was "The Second X Chromosome." She died from a hemorrhage while battling stomach cancer for many years. Both she and her husband were proclaimed atheists. She received recognition by chapters of peace groups and was twice the recipient of the "Mother of the Year" award; First by California State Association of Colored Women's Clubs and then Jewish Women's Clubs of Los Angeles in 1967. The Pauling Peace Lectureship was started in her honor in 1982 with her husband being the first lecturer. The Ava Helen Pauling Chair in the Linus Pauling Institute was established in her memory, and in January of 1998, the Linus Pauling Institute received a $1.2 million donation for her chair, which funds various research programs such as the study of specific proteins in cancer and Lou Gehrig's disease. In 2013 her biography was published, "Ava Helen Pauling: Partner, Activist, Visionary" by Mina Carson.