A great-grandma, Joyce DeFauw, just earned a bachelor's degree from Northern Illinois University - more than 70 years after she first enrolled. She's now 90!
DeFauw was months away from earning a degree in home economics when she fell in love with a man from her church. She decided to pause her studies to start a family with him. After her first husband passed away, she remarried and grew her family - today, she's got dozens of grandkids and great-grandkids.
In 2019, she mentioned to them that she came close to completing her degree, and her ever-supportive family encouraged her to follow through. And so she did! This time, though, she opted to study from her retirement home.
She took one online class per semester - her first time using a computer! - which kept her busy during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the virus kept her family from visiting. And now, three years after she picked her studies back up, she received her degree in general studies.
Why did she go through all the studying and cramming of college again? Well, why not? “It’s nice to finish something you started,” DeFauw says - whether it's a lengthy book, an art project or even a long-paused college education.
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