[2] In 1933 Staschen joined the WPA team led by Bernard Zakheim, painting one of the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.

[3][4][5] Also in the early 1930s Staschen attended the organizing meeting of the San Francisco Artists and Writers Union, along with Zakheim, Kenneth Rexroth, and future husband Frank Triest.

[6][7] Towards the end of the decade Staschen assisted the artist Richard Gentry Ayer (1909–1967) with his WPA murals for the Aquatic Park in San Francisco.

[8] Staschen divorced Valentine Julien and then married Al Podesta, a fellow pacifist and manual laborer.

[6] She was interviewed again at the end of her life for the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library at the University of California.