Marriage to Linus Pauling

On June 17, 1923, Ava Helen Miller married Linus Pauling, a young and ambitious chemistry student at Oregon Agricultural College whom she had met in a chemistry class he taught as a teaching assistant. The marriage would become one of the most consequential partnerships in twentieth-century American science and activism.

Ava Helen quickly became not merely a supportive spouse but an intellectual and political partner to Linus. As his scientific career soared — culminating in a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 — Ava Helen developed her own parallel career as a peace and human rights activist, and is widely credited by historians and by Linus Pauling himself with awakening his social conscience and drawing him into political activism, particularly regarding nuclear disarmament.

Together the couple raised four children while maintaining active public lives. Ava Helen managed the household and family affairs while also organizing meetings, drafting political statements, and engaging in her own extensive activism, including co-founding the women's peace organization that contributed to the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Their partnership exemplified a rare model in that era: a marriage where both husband and wife achieved significant public distinction, with Linus Pauling frequently acknowledging in interviews and writings that Ava Helen was the driving moral force behind his peace activism, including work that led to his 1962 Nobel Peace Prize.