.......gets high school diploma

CHICAGO – A 90-year-old suburban Chicago woman who dropped out of school to help her family during the Great Depression now has her high school diploma.

Eleanor Benz left Chicago Public Schools' Lake View High in 1936 during her senior year to take a job. Over the following decades she moved to the suburb of Gurnee and had 15 children, 54 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren.

Benz attended night school for typing and bookkeeping, but she recently told one of her daughters that never completing high school was one of her greatest disappointments. Her children contacted Lake View, and the school approved Benz's diploma.

This week, at her 90th birthday party, Benz's family presented her with the diploma and a 2009 gown and cap with a 1936 tassel.

Great story!!!

Gee, think I'll tell my kids I always regretted not buying stock in "Ma Bell" in the 70's! Think it will work?

I got my GED in 1967 while in the Marine Corps, 11 days before going to Viet Nam, I had just turned 18. My class graduated 11 months after that while I was still there.

Cool post Rose. Better than artificial fear speculations of nuclear war with Iran and corrupt politicos.

So did she have to complete the GED course or did they just give her the diploma?

If she had 15 kids and made it to 90, just give her the damn thing. I won't even comment on having 15 kids, I'm already exhausted thinking about it. LOL

I got some kds of my own somewhere, I think.

It would just make the story that much better if she actually completed the course.

Probably but I am still having difficulty with helping the family then going on to have 15 children. Maybe if she and her husband had come up for air between a few of them she might have had time to study.

Almost peed my pants on that one, boo. They must have stuck to strict Catholicism.

the woman...dropped out of school to help her family during the Great Depression and attended night school for typing and bookkeeping while raising 15 children. I think she earned being 90 yrs old especially. it's not like they are just handing them out to drop outs

Hi Rose,

Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing with giving her the diploma. But you hear stories on the news about these ancient people who have one back to school and earned their degrees- high school and college. Just would have made a great(er) story if she had gone back to school.

oh I didn't take it that way...I was adding to things is all

I must be the only one that is thinking "it's all useless in the long-run anyway"...she is 90, what is she going to do? I understand never completing it, but she had how many years to go back and get it?

they give people honorary diplomas at times for many reasons

Yea, but what's the point? Is she going to pursue a career now? It's cool that she has it after all these years, but again...how many years could she have went back and recieved it?

That simple piece of paper can mean a great deal to someone who had no choice but to leave school in order to work an help the family.

well...she dropped out of high school to work...then had 15 kids....and going to night school.

it's nothing more than an honorary diploma....just something to have

But it is useless. The diploma has been useless for about the last nine or so years, you can't really get anywhere with it and it doesn't "open" doors like it once did. I understand being able to go back and get it after all these years, my problem is 'why bother?'

Perhaps it's a matter of self esteem or self worth? Accomplishin sumthin finally?

"she recently told one of her daughters that never completing high school was one of her greatest disappointments"

I suspect that is why

She had at least 70 years to do it. If you want to cut that down more she had the very least 40-50 years to get it, why now? Why not earlier when it would have meant more and been far more worthwhile?

I went and recieved my GED two years ago, lost it in a week somewhere in my room. I'm working a job I could have been working without it and getting paid the same as if I never had it. It has proved to be nothing to me, it has not opened doors and I do not have a "good" job because of it. I am doing the same thing I could have done just fine without wasting my time getting the useless thing.

A lot of good that did for self-worth and self-esteem, eh?