Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Helen A. Pepoon

As published in the Alumni Record, Painesville High School, Painesville, Ohio
Compiled and Published by the Painesville High School Alumni Association in 1925

Transcribed by Linda Jeffery, November 2004.

Helen A. Pepoon, ’'73

Among the many graduates of P.H.S. who have entered the profession of teaching one of the most successful is Miss Helen A. Pepoon. The class of 1873 is proud to claim her among their number. Her desire for a higher education was fulfilled for upon completing her high school course she entered Oberlin College, receiving her degree in 1878.

During the period from 1880 to 1888 she taught in the Wisconsin Female College at Fox Lake, Wisconsin, serving as principal the last six years. Wisconsin Female College afterwards was called Downer College and now is united with Milwaukee College and is known as Milwaukee-Downer College, located at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The next three years she was the efficient principal of Kawaiahao Seminary in Honolulu. The wish for a still better education and better training prompted her to again enter Oberlin, this time doing post-graduate work. This was followed by a year of teaching in Grand River Institute at Austinburg, Ohio.

Miss Pepoon next accepted a position as prof. of Latin in Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington which she held until she retired from teaching in 1921. She served Whitman College long and efficiently, contributing much to both the social and intellectual life of the institution. She is an alumna which P.H.S. is proud to claim, one who has ever stood for those things which make for the higher development of humanity.

Miss Pepoon has received three bachelor degrees from Oberlin College and an honorary M.A. from Whitman College which shows the College she was serving recognized her ability and wished to show its appreciation of her work.

In 1910 she was granted a two years leave of absence from Whitman College. These years were spent in travelling in Europe and Asia. She returned to America by way of the Pacific Ocean thus completing a most intereesting trip around the world.