Her sister, Celia, was eight years older and had attended UCLA when it was still the Los Angeles Normal School. I remember her telling me that Celia would wrap bread in a factory till five o’clock in the morning and then go to school. The family had come here speaking no English at all; they were a real American success story.

How my mother chose her major was interesting. She had planned to be a history major, but when she got in line to register, the line was very long. But she saw one of her friends standing in the line for physical education majors — the friend called her over, and that line was much shorter, so she signed up to be a P.E. major.

UCLA yearbook photo, 1929.

She wasn’t involved in clubs or sororities on campus, because she had to work while she was a student, just as her sister had, but she was very proud of her time at UCLA. And she told me that they never had beaten USC when she was there. One thing she’d always say was, “Anyone can succeed if they just do the work; you don’t have to be a genius to make it.”

She graduated just as the Depression started, and went to work in L.A. city elementary schools as a P.E. teacher and substitute teacher. She eventually became a principal at a school that taught special needs students, and was a lifelong educator.

My mother had fond memories of the old Vermont campus. She was part of the “Pioneer Bruins” — people who had gone to school at the original campus, before the move to Westwood — and she attended class reunions well past her 100th birthday. And she did visit the new campus — she was there for my graduation, of course.

She was a loyal Bruin to the end, and died in 2015 at 108 years young. I still can’t quite believe that she’s gone.

Submitted by Sidney Blumner ’60, M.A. ’61