Eighty-nine-year-old Evelyn Latham, disabled by back pain, needed a walker to attend graduate classes at Cal State San Bernardino. For three years, she commuted 80 miles from Joshua Tree to complete her master's degree in social sciences.

Today, she plans to cross the stage on the arm of a professor to receive her diploma from Cal State. A bound hardcover thesis caps decades of overcoming obstacles and adversity to achieve a goal few would attempt at her age and in her physical condition.

"I just love school that much. It was pure enjoyment," she said by phone from her home in Joshua Tree.

"She's an inspiration that's kept me going," said Suzanne Pratt, 61, by phone from Joshua Tree. Pratt shared the commute with Latham until 1999 when Pratt received her bachelor's degree in education. "I often got sick and thought 'I'm going to drop out' and then I thought about Evelyn."
Latham is the second of six children born to an uneducated blacksmith and a mother who completed eighth grade. Latham recalled tagging along at 4 years old with her older sister to a one-room schoolhouse in rural Missouri. An insatiable reader, she convinced the teacher she was ready for a formal education. She proved it by besting older students in history and spelling bees and advancing to state contests.

Tuberculosis set her back one year, but she had already surpassed children her age in the classroom. To attend high school, a determined Latham would move to another town and work for a family that housed her.

Depression changed plans

She was ready to enter college at age 16, but the Depression changed everything, she said. Farmers no longer offered work to her father. Latham found work assembling shoes in a factory to support her family.

Despite hard times, her father encouraged her to complete her education. "He said I could do anything if I wanted it bad enough. He would have been proud of this," Latham said of her impending graduation. None of her siblings completed college.

Another shot at a bachelor's degree wouldn't come for 40 years. Latham's first husband frowned on the idea, she said. The couple moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1938 and adopted two children. Latham later divorced and worked as a librarian and a clerk for an aerospace company in Los Angeles.

Latham's second husband, a mechanical engineer who graduated from Purdue University, understood his new bride's longing for a college education. Not long after they married in 1971, Robert Latham encouraged his retired wife, then 57, to attend Cal State Los Angeles, a 5-mile drive from their home.

Misfortune struck again. Two months after her wedding, her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He couldn't work for three years and Latham re-entered the workforce as an administrative assistant.

Her husband's cancer went into remission. The couple retired to Joshua Tree in 1984, the year Latham got her bachelor's degree in American studies. Her degree earned her a job as a substitute teacher in the local school district.

"Follow your dreams"

At 70, Latham was the oldest of 4,700 students to graduate at Cal State Los Angeles in 1984. Today, at 89, she will be the senior graduate among 2,991 students at Cal State San Bernardino.

Getting her master's degree took her three years. Slowing her down, she said, was the death of her 59-year-old son and a major shoulder operation.

An academic goal and campus camaraderie kept her going, she said, even through nights spent at a nearby Motel 6 after evening classes.

"I had wonderful professors," said Latham, who attended classes three days a week. "I felt I wouldn't fit in, but you walk across campus and everyone says hello. Somebody was always there to help me walk."

Her thesis adviser, political science professor Brian Janiskee, recommended that Latham write about the electoral college.

"She genuinely enjoys research, attending class, being on campus and it shows," he said by phone from campus.

Latham has no plans to work toward a doctorate. "I'm just going to enjoy the degree. It's the challenge that interests me, getting there, not so much the goal."

Latham's advice to younger peers? "Follow your dreams and have one in the beginning. Keep trying and don't give up."