#99-06-20
For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter
Bailley
Seventy Years Late: 93-Year-Old Graduate Receives Bachelor's Degree
Topeka Woman Leads Effort to Get Diploma for Her Mother
Seventy years after completing all the requirements for her college degree, Ethel Fields Netherland finally received her diploma, in a special graduation ceremony held today (June 30, 1999) at
A native of Neponset, Illinois, who now lives in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Fields should have received a bachelor's degree from Lombard College in Galesburg in 1929. A last minute delay prevented her from doing so, and Lombard closed the following year--leaving Netherland with no school to award her the degree.
Lombard's student files, however, were preserved by Knox College, and earlier in June, Netherland's daughter, Barbara Brady, of Topeka, Kansas, re-opened the issue with Knox President Richard S. Millman.
Millman reviewed Netherland's records, and concluded that she was eligible for a bachelor's degree in biology from Knox.
"I'm delighted that Knox was able to remedy this situation and grant Mrs. Netherland the degree that she earned. I only regret that it took this long to reach this happy moment," Millman said, prior to presenting a Knox diploma to the oldest--and the newest--member of the Knox Class of 1999.
"It's very satisfying," Netherland told reporters after the graduation ceremony. "It would have been nice to have had it all these years, but it's so wonderful that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren could be here today," Netherland said. "Knox has been wonderful. They really went all-out to make it a grand occasion."
Millman and other Knox faculty, administrators and trustees held a special graduation ceremony for Netherland at 11:30 this morning inside the College's historic Old Main building. Knox's regular graduation was held outside Old Main on June 5.
and Knox President Richard Millman. Download Photo 400K
Nine members of Netherland's family attended, including Brady and her husband, the Rev. E. Merris Brady, of Topeka; three other daughters; two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
"My mother honestly thought that she should have gotten the degree," Brady said. "But after she and my father were married in 1931, she just didn't have the time to pursue it any further." Mrs. Netherland worked as the bookkeeper for N&N Cement Co., in Des Plaines, operated by her husband Merwin Netherland, who died in 1992. She has six children, 23 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Brady says she pieced together details of the story by interviewing her mother for a family history.
Speaking on behalf of the Knox Board of Trustees at the ceremony, Robert Sparks, a Life Trustee of the College, reviewed the special relationship between Knox and Lombard. It was almost precisely 69 years ago--on July 1, 1930--that Knox College became the custodian of Lombard College's scholastic records, Sparks said. "About 35 Lombard students eventually graduated from Knox and three Lombard faculty members became part of the Knox faculty.
"Today we add one more Lombard student to the list of those who eventually graduated from Knox College," Sparks said.
Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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