Elinora Bowdoin Bolton, who was a member of UMBC's original graduating class in 1970, passed away last week. She was 93. Her Baltimore Sun obituary suggests that she was born into great privilege. She lived much of her life at a time when women faced significant obstacles to transcending traditional roles. But her obituary hints that Mrs. Bolton was an independent spirit who was able to hone and apply her many talents.
Some highlights of her life:
- Born in Baltimore, she moved to Paris after her parents' divorce and her mother's remarriage.
- Around her 19th birthday, she was presented as a debutante before King George VI and his wife at the Court of St. James.
- After her mother died when she was about 20, she moved back to Baltimore and began working in the Johns Hopkins Hospital emergency room.
- In her early 20s, her prowess as a tennis player got her photographed for the Baltimore Sun's sports section.
- In her mid-20s she married an Army Air Corps captain while he was on a 3-day leave from World War II. The couple lived in an old farmhouse in Elkridge and had 10 children.
- Once her youngest child entered school, she applied to UMBC to pursue her bachelor's degree in French.
- At 52, she graduated alongside her second son.
- After earning a master's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park at age 54, she taught French language and literature at UMBC, College Park and Catholic University.
- She was a docent at Walters Art Museum and led French-speaking tours.
Elinora Bowdoin Bolton's story has me thinking about my own life, and about what it means to make the most of one's opportunities. We all grow up immersed in a world of expectations about our roles and appropriate paths. I don't know for certain that she experienced any part of her life as a struggle against such conventions, but I'd like to think that Mrs. Bolton's mid-life decision to earn bachelor's and master's degrees represented a triumph of self-awareness and free will. That's a victory worth seeking at any age.
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