Out of the Attic: Aunt Alice Johnston’s Report Card from Cottey College

Veteran members of the Society will remember a time when transcriptions of family records – bible pages, newspaper articles, obituaries, funeral programs, commencement programs, and so on – were regularly found in the pages of our publications. We’d like to revive this practice and start featuring family records in our monthly eNews. We need your help to accomplish this.

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Out of the Attic: Aunt Alice’s Report Card from Cottey College

By Ken Johnston

This document is the 1887-88 women’s college transcript of my 2nd great-grandfather John Johnston’s daughter, Alice. Alice would become an early-day female newspaper reporter in Chicago and then New York. Below that is a photo of Alice, likely from her later graduation from Cottey College in Neosho, MO.

We have more than a hundred letters from Alice to her father. She always started them with “Dear Pa.” We transcribed the letters into a book, which we of course entitled, “Dear Pa.” She had a rather fascinating life for her time, but tragically died in 1905 from consumption (tuberculosis).