Mary Rippon was the first female professor at the University of
Colorado, where she taught for 31 years. Many of her students went on
to earn advanced degrees, but “Miss Rippon” (as she always was called)
never had a degree of her own, not even a bachelor’s. That’s soon to
change. At CU’s commencement in May, the regents will award a
posthumous honorary doctorate to their legendary pioneer educator.
Said Regent Cindy Carlisle, “This award is long overdue.”
Rippon was born in Illinois in 1850. Her father died when she was a
baby, her mother abandoned her, and she was passed around an extended
family. When the young woman graduated from high school in 1868, she
inherited money from the sale of her late father’s farm. She planned to
go to the University of Illinois, but it didn’t admit women.
Instead, Rippon traveled to Europe, where she ended up staying for
five years. While there, she attended university classes in Germany,
France and Switzerland. And she kept in contact with her former high
school chemistry teacher, Joseph Sewall.
When CU first opened in September 1877, Sewall was its first
president, and he invited Rippon to join the faculty. At the time,
there was only one other professor, and the entire university was
housed in one building, now called Old Main.
Rippon, then 28 years old, arrived on the train in January 1878 and
lived in Boulder the rest of her life. CU has always admitted women,
and the new professor was well-liked and quickly became their role
model. Beginning in 1891, she chaired the Department of Modern
Languages (later the Department of German Language and Literature).
Before long, Rippon was known as an exceptional professor who was
highly revered by both students and colleagues. And, perhaps for good
reason, she kept a low profile.
When Rippon was 37, she had a romantic relationship with a
25-year-old student. She and the student, Will Housel, secretly
married. Their daughter, Miriam, conveniently was born in Germany while
Rippon took a year’s sabbatical. The couple (who never lived together
as man and wife) left the baby in a European orphanage. Determined to
keep her job, Rippon resumed teaching at CU as if nothing in her life
had changed.
From then on, Rippon led two separate lives. In the Victorian era,
married women didn’t work, as society deemed it as taking a job away
from a man with a family to support. Ironically, Rippon financially
supported her daughter, even after Housel remarried and was able to
give her a home.
Rippon retired from CU in 1909, but she remained in Boulder until
her death in 1935. Her private life was known to only two close
friends, even during the years that her daughter (now deceased) also
taught at CU. Miriam’s son Wilfred announced his relationship to the
university community in the 1980s. And his son, Eric Rieder, is coming
to Boulder to accept the long-sought degree for his
great-grandmother.
“Rippon shattered the glass ceilings of the day,” said Carlisle.
“Not only was she a scholar and a teacher, she was a revolutionary. She
was a magnet for students who were ready to break the mold.”
Silvia Pettem’s history column appears every Sunday in the Daily
Camera. Write her at the Daily Camera, P. O. Box 591, Boulder 80306, or
e-mail pettem@earthlink.net.
