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Photo by Pete Amland
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Grace Iacolucci was disappointed that her trip to China, planned for last spring, had to be canceled because of the SARS scare. So the lively 89-year-old simply signed up when the tour was rescheduled for spring 2004.
Iacolucci is a member of the Class of 1936 at Milwaukee State Teachers College, a UWM predecessor institution, and has attended several college reunions. “We started school during the Depression,” she recalls, “when tuition was $25 a year. There was only one building on campus, Mitchell Hall, where all the classes were held.
“I got my degree in art education, and my first job was in Neenah at Winnebago Day School. I taught kindergarten in the morning and art to the whole school in the afternoons. Then I married Joe Iacolucci and moved back to Milwaukee.”
Her husband, a well-known Milwaukee artist and athlete, also earned a degree in art education at MSTC. “It was a marriage made in heaven,” Iacolucci says, “but unfortunately it just didn’t last long enough. Joe died in 1952.” They had one son, Joseph, who graduated from UWM in 1965 and is a physician in Bellevue, Wash.
“I was glad to have my teaching degree to fall back on,” Iacolucci says. “I taught at Hi Mount School at 49th and Garfield from 1950 to 1963.” She earned a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education at UWM in 1961 and in 1963 joined the MPS Central Office as a supervisor and later as an early childhood specialist.
What accounts for the twinkle in her eye, her ever-present smile and delightful personality? “The kindergarteners!” she laughs. “They’re the best. Those four- and five-year-olds are right at the edge of life’s experiences, just leaving home for the first time. They keep you open to life and new experiences.”
Eager to share her outstanding MSTC and UWM education and her teaching skills, Iacolucci’s globe-trotting began in 1956 when she traveled to Guiseley, Yorkshire, England, as an exchange teacher. She took along her son, Joe, who was then 12 years old.
“We stayed in a 200-year-old house with no phone, no refrigerator, no hot water, no bathtub. But the Yorkshire people are very down-to-earth. They’d say ‘Come to tea, and would you like a bath, luv?’”
She’s been back to Guiseley five times and has taken both her grandsons there. To call her a world traveler is to flirt with understatement. She has traveled the globe and made friends everywhere: Germany, Scotland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Denmark, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Alaska, China, Italy, France and – if she had to name a favorite – Machu Picchu in Peru.
A faithful donor to the university through the years, Iacolucci also is
a member of The Chapman Society, a group of individuals who have named UWM
as a beneficiary in
their wills.
“I truly value the education I received at MSTC and at UWM, which really gave me a wonderful start in life,” she says. “UWM is really a great place, and it’s so rewarding to see it grow. Look at what Nancy Zimpher has done! I just love going to Fine Arts Quartet concerts and I get to campus for as many events as I can. I love the Zelazo Center. UWM is so important to the community, and people need to realize that.”
As long as this diminutive dynamo keeps circling the globe, she’ll be telling the UWM story wherever she gets the next stamp on her passport.
—Bea Bourgeois
For information on The Chapman Society, contact Stephanie Ackerman at 414-229-3018 or Eric Anderson at 414-229-3016.