Born on November 27, 1884 in Macon, Missouri, Ava Milam Clark was one of five daughters of Ancil and Louisa Milam. She taught two years in a public school (1902-1904) and then spent three years teaching at Blees Military Academy in Macon, Missouri (1904-1907). Clark returned to school, this time as a student, obtaining her Ph.B. (1910) and A.M. degree (1911) from the University of Chicago. While working as an instructor of Foods and Nutrition at Iowa State College in the summer of 1911, she was hired to be a professor and head of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Oregon Agricultural College (1911-1916).

She was named Dean of Home Economics in 1917, the youngest dean in college history, and under her leadership the program became nationally known. In 1932, she was made Director of Home Economics for the Oregon State System of Higher Education.

Clark was known for her international travels, focusing on establishing home economics programs in Asia. In 1922, Clark went to China to help establish a home economics department at Yenching University (Peking), introducing the study of home economics to China. She left OSC for a year in 1931 to work as a consultant in home economics at various universities in Asia. In the summer of 1937, Clark returned to Asia with Alma Fritchoff, conducting a home economics tour of both China and Japan. For five months in 1948, she acted as a consultant in home economics colleges in Korea and China, making an educational survey in the Philippines for the Foreign Missions Conference of North America. Finally, from 1950 to 1952 Clark served as a home economics advisor to the governments of Syria and Iraq for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). She retired from OSC in 1950 and was made Dean Emeritus. In 1966, she received the Distinguished Service Award from OSU, two years later she received the same award from Yonsei University.

Clark wrote many articles for various professional magazines as well as two books: A Study of Student Homes of China (1930), and her autobiography, Adventures of a Home Economist, with Kenneth Munford (OSU Press, 1969). To see a more complete list of her publications, click this link to see the Open Library project site.

Ava Milam married J.C. Clark on November 1, 1952. Nearly 25 years later, on August 14, 1976, Clark passed away.

In 1915, a charming bungalow on Corvallis’ NW 26th Street was built for Clark. She remained in this house for over four decades, spanning her remarkable career. In her autobiography, Ava Milam Clark wrote this about her house: “Early in 1915, I decided to build a home of my own in which to live and entertain students, faculty, and other friends. When my parents came for an extended visit that summer, Father helped me choose a lot a few blocks from the campus. Mother helped me develop plans, while Father talked with the carpenter. In a time when large houses were the custom, many people thought I was building a doll’s house when I built one just large enough to accommodate myself, a college girl to live with me, and a guest or two from time to time” (p. 105). To learn more about the house and read more about its evolution, visit the City of Corvallis site to read the Oregon Inventory of Historic Properties form. To see some great pictures, especially of Clark when she was young, click here.

Margaret Comstock Snell was known as one of the truly great faculty members in the history of OSU. Respected and admired by everyone who knew her, Snell’s greatest contribution was the establishment of the first college of home economics in the West — and she did so with 24 students, no assistants, almost no budget, and a lone classroom on the third floor of Benton Hall.

She was born to Quaker parents near the town of Livingston, New York, in 1843, attended Cedar Grove Academy, and graduated from Grinnell College. After teaching in Iowa City from 1872 to 1879, Snell moved to Benicia, California, to establish a school for young women; she called it the Snell Seminary. Snell developed an interest in medicine and was admitted to the medical school at Boston University, where she graduated with honors in 1886, specializing in homeopathy or household economy. After returning to Oakland she was recruited North to Corvallis by Board of Regents member Wallis Nash and his wife Louisa.

Want to know more about her time at OSU? George Edmonston has written a fine article on Snell, full of details and great quotes!

Helen Margaret Gilkey epitomized the Pacific Northwestern botanist of the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Born on March 6, 1886, in Montesanto, Washington, she and her family moved to Corvallis in 1903. She received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from OSC and completed her PhD, “A Revision of the Tuberales (truffle fungi) of California,” in 1915 with W.A. Setchell at the University of California at Berkeley. From 1915 until 1918, she worked as a scientific illustrator at Berkeley.

In 1918, she returned to Oregon State to work as the curator of the University’s herbarium, a position she held until 1951; she later became a professor of Botany. She had 44 publications to her credit, 10 on vascular plant taxonomy and 10 on Tuberales. According to the Oregon State University Mycological Collection, “She played an essential role in establishing Oregon State University as the center for taxonomic and systematic research of hypogeous fungi. Her collection is still actively used and serves as the foundation for systematic research of hypogeous fungi in North America.” The consummate academic, retirement didn’t slow her research; she remained active until her death in 1972.

To learn more about Dr. Gilkey, read our March 13th, 2007 blog post.

There is also a wonderful Oregon Encyclopedia article on her — well worth the read!

It’s true! But those of you who have been regular readers of this blog probably knew that after seeing this post in 2007.

Want to know more about the woman? Check the Wikipedia article on Mercedes Allison Bates.

Love the woman, but want to know more about the icon? Wikipedia has a great article on Betty Crocker, with wonderful links at the bottom!

Today we’re going to shift from students to faculty, featuring a short biography of Ida Callahan– although, she was also an 1881 OSU grad!

And again, thanks to George Edmonston for all his work on the history of OSU on the Alumni Association site, he makes my job easy …

“One of the legendary faculty members in the history of OSU, Ida Burnett was a standout student while in school and was hired immediately after graduation by President Arnold to assist W. W. Bristow in the preparatory department. She is the only woman pictured in one of the earliest known photos of the Oregon State faculty, taken in 1883. She rose to become assistant professor of English at OAC and during the early 1920s was president of the Oregon Federation of Women’s Clubs. She was much sought after at alumni reunions for many years, and it was an honor among women returnees to be photographed with her. Today, a women’s residence hall just east of the Kerr Administration Building is named in her honor.”