By Sandy Stevens
 When it comes to being “Purple for Life,” nobody does it better than Louise Braklow.
At 106 years old, Braklow is UNI’s oldest known alumna, and her alma mater still holds a special place in her heart.
“It was something that was so great in giving me background that I did not have when I was growing up,” she said. “It was a happy place to be.”
With her UNI diploma in hand, Braklow would go on to teach first-graders for 55 -years.
Braklow was born July 22, 1902, in Boone, Iowa, the youngest—and the first to enter college—in a family of four boys and six girls. Now a resident of Chicago’s Norwood Crossing senior living community, she wears a hearing aid and uses a walker (“It takes me about three minutes to get up,” she quipped), but her mind is sharp and her outlook, sunny. An avid Chicago Cubs fan who saw them win the World Series 100 years ago, her only frown came when a visitor brought up the team’s failure to repeat the feat in 2008.
Her love for a sister’s children spurred Braklow, who never married, to enter the teaching profession.
Braklow and two cousins graduated from high school the same year, but she was the only one headed to Iowa State Teachers College. The other two went to Iowa State University to study “domestic” subjects, she said.
“Other girls were more interested in secretarial or in getting married—and they did that,” Braklow said.
She enrolled in the summer session immediately after high school graduation, but the dorm was already full (enrollment in 1922 had reached 2,130, including 1,784 women), so she stayed with a friend of her mother: a Mrs. Williams who rented rooms to faculty members.
Braklow, a lifelong Lutheran who reads the Bible daily, noted, “She was a Welsh Presbyterian, and that was different from me.”
 At Iowa State Teachers College, two women directed primary teachers, but one promoted consolidated instead of one-room schools, Braklow said. “That’s where I got my influence.”
Braklow said she wasn’t popular in the dating scene, adding, “I didn’t think anyone would be interested in me.
“Studying was all that I needed to do, and I was enthralled with the lovely library. There was an underpass from the street to it, and I always went to the library between classes to study. At noon, though, I was always hungry,” she said. “There was a little stand at the corner where I spent 10 cents for a hot dog. That was my lunch.”
Braklow earned a two-year certificate before teaching in Guttenberg for two years, earning $75 a month and spending summers in Cedar Falls to earn more credits. Two years later, she taught in Estherville for a year before moving back to Cedar Falls (and, this time, the dorm) to complete a four-year degree in 1928.
Then came an interview with a representative from the Evanston, Ill., school district. He asked what salary she’d consider.
“No less than $1,200 a year,” she said. “That has been offered to me by another school.”
“If you’re interested,” he replied, “I will give you $1,300.”
“Oh, was I thrilled!” Braklow recalled.
For the teaching post in Illinois, she took a train to Chicago, a train to Evanston and a taxi to the two-story district office. “It was my first experience with an elevator,” she said.
She spent 52 years as a first-grade teacher in the district’s Oakton School, earned a master’s degree in elementary education from Northwestern University and celebrated the UNI graduations of a niece’s two great-grandchildren. After retiring in 1967, she became a hospital volunteer.
Braklow credits her “teacher’s college” for putting her on the path to her fulfilling life’s work.
“I needed to know more,” Braklow declared. “I didn’t know much about Shakespeare, for example, but when I went into the library between classes, I would pick up other information outside of the class that I was in. I could pick up any book I wanted from the shelves.
“It was just a great experience.”
Editors Note: It is with deepest sympathy that we announce the death of Louise Braklow. She died on May 5, after the publication had gone to the printer. We appreciate the time she spent sharing her memories of UNI and are saddened by the loss. |
UNI's youngest-known
graduate Maude Gilchrist
In June 1878, the first graduating class of the Iowa State Normal School received their diplomas, and among them was Maude  Gilchrist. The 16-year-old daughter of the University of Northern Iowa’s first president received her Bachelor of Didactics degree that year, continued her studies and received her four-year Bachelor of Science degree in 1880 at 18. She is the youngest-known person to graduate from UNI.
While Gilchrist’s dad, James Cleland Gilchrist, led the school as “principal,” Gilchrist became an educational leader in her own right. She taught natural sciences and mathematics at her alma mater from 1883-1886; was a botany instructor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts; and served as principal of the Illinois Women’s College until 1901. She spent 12 years at Michigan State College as dean of women and the home economics division. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1907. Her career continued with a return to Wellesley and two years at Iowa State College, now Iowa State University.
Gilchrist was a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was co-founder of Omicron Nu, the home economics honor society. She died in 1952 at the age of 90.
Thank you to UNI Rod Library Special Collections & University Archives Division and its staff’s expertise in UNI history.
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