Lis Tureman of Anchor Realty
Lis Tureman
Lifetime of talking leads
Dutch refugee to new Chinook career. Dressed handsomely in a pin-striped
business dress ready for a day at the office, real estate broker Lis
Tureman offers no hint of a diversity-filled past that included terror
as a youngster in occupied Holland during World War II, and years later
probing the minds of incarcerated murderers facing death row. She also
taught school and served as a police officer. Her colorful odyssey began
when German soldiers occupied her native Holland community. She recalls
at five and six years old being terrified for her life. "We were
always on guard," she explains, "especially during curfews.
Germany lost so many soldiers they were being replaced by young kids --
Hitlers youth. Those kids were so scared they would shoot at anything
that moved. "My dad was in the underground," Tureman
continues, "and my older brother scrounged for food. We were always
hungry because the Germans were sending all the food to their troops. I
never even saw an orange until after the war." When relief finally
came, "It was nice to be liberated," Tureman says, even though
her appetite for Campbell's soup was forever ruined. Her liberators
handed famished families such an abundance of Campbell's soup "that
we ate too much of a good thing," Tureman says. "To this day I
never eat it. Soon after Germanys surrender, "my family did a
really courageous thing," Tureman says. "Even though they were
pushing 50 years old, they uprooted the family to emigrate to Canada --
a new country, culture and new language -- all for us children."
She recalls her families last night before leaving Holland. "We were
with my aunt and uncle in Rotterdam," she says, "and there
were still bullet holes in the walls." Once in Canada, her father,
a former government worker, "became a farmer," Tureman says,
"because he wanted to own dirt. We were treated well because we
were a novelty, the first immigrants to hit Canada. A whole wave came
after us. "Mother thought that nice jobs for her children would be
teachers or preachers," Tureman continues. Tureman heeded her
mothers wishes, teaching school until she married a celebrity Golden
Gloves boxing champion and settled in as a homemaker. That didn't last.
Following their divorce, she returned to college, this time to become a
psychiatric counselor "so I could understand people like my first
husband," she grins. For the next 25 years Turemans psychiatric
work ranged from evaluating child abuse cases to mind-sets of hardened
criminals before and after their sentencing, "getting an idea of
where their heads were," she says. One recollection brings a smile
to Turemans face. "I was shopping one day with my kids," she
says, "and came out of the store in pouring rain. My car was
stolen." Angry that it was lost forever, she eventually settled
with the insurance company and bought another car. A few months later
she was interviewing two 17-year-old runaway girls sentenced to prison.
"I was trying to see how truthful they were," Tureman says.
"They told me they were in for shoplifting,, but I told them it had
to be for more than that or they wouldn't be in prison. They admitted to
stealing a car. "I told them I had my car stolen," she
continues, "and asked them if the one they stole was a white Chevy.
They said, Yes. I asked them if it had red leather upholstery. They
said, Yes. They ended up apologizing for stealing my car. Its a small
world. "When they had done their time," Tureman continues,
they stopped by my office to ask me what kind of a car I was
driving now. They said they didn't want to make the same mistake
again." Meanwhile, her future husband, Bob, became stranded in
Vancouver, British Columbia, after his car burned in a parking lot. He
decided to stay. Although a U.S. citizen, he was granted emigrant status
on the condition that he work a job wiring a particular sawmill. He and
Tureman met, married, and moved to the Bremerton area in 1972. Bob began
a contracting business. Tureman applied for a clerical job.
"Someone read my resume," she says, "and recommended me to
the city police department." Not only did she become a police
officer and later a sheriffs deputy, but she also counseled stressed-out
police officers. But soon a monumental cloud drifted over her life. She
was in America on a green-card status. To keep her civil service job,
"I needed citizenship," she says, "and there was a
three-year waiting list." She hurried requests for help to Senator
Henry Jackson and Congressman Al Swift, and got it. The three-year wait
magically transformed into only three months. Tureman laughingly recalls
when Swift later visited her home town while on a re-election campaign
trail. "One of his aides invited me to a press party," she
says. "When I came in, I heard the aide tell someone, She's presentable." A picture of her and Swift together appeared in The
Washington Post. "What if I had looked like a slob when I walked
in?" Tureman laughs. "Would they still have had the photo
session?" Some eight years ago, despite a successful life in the
city, "and after the kids were grown," she explains, "the
area where they lived changed from country into residential. We wanted
out." They moved to Chinook. New Sales Career: Bob continued his
contracting business. But Tureman, true to her unpredictable lot in
life, began selling real estate. She had met Realtor Joyce Otterson
"who told me," Tureman says, "that I never stop talking.
I would make a good agent. She hired me." Tureman eventually earned
her brokers license in preparation for purchasing her own real estate
business, Pacific County Properties. She also navigated uncharted waters
by joining the Astoria Elks Lodge when it first began accepting women
members. Tureman eventually was elected "the first female lecturing
knight in Oregon," she says, adding "I may become the first
female exalted ruler." The walls of Turemans office reflect yet
another facet of her life's contrasts. She exercises a creative bent by
oil painting, "mostly impressionistic," she says. "I have
always done art, but never had lessons. I wish I had more time for
it." "People who are creative have a flair," she adds,
her arm making a sweeping gesture around the room, "like making
this nice office out of a junky house." She and Bob remodeled an
old residence into their present real estate office, painfully restoring
existing wooden floors and trim, and accenting the interior with antique
furniture and period wallpaper. Tureman returned to Holland 10 years
ago, "to re-establish my roots," she says. While on the trip
she purchased something she remembered seeing as a youth, but had never
possessed -- a pair of wooden shoes. In fact, she admits, "I never
even heard the story about the boy plugging a hole in the dike with his
finger until I moved to Canada. "One thing I have never lost,"
she adds, "is the language. I can speak it and read it, and its
come in handy many times." Tureman ponders an obvious question
asking how she managed to fall into such contrasting careers. "I
love working with people," she says, "and I couldn't sit at
home." Article from the Chinook Observer Written by Stan Thompson
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