Marcia E. Turner

In memory of Marcia Elizabeth Turner
b. 8/29/1883 d.9/12/1959.
Associate Professor of Home Economics Education, Iowa State College (ISU) 1928-45.

Miss Turner was the youngest daughter in a Kansas pioneer family of 10 children whose father was a Civil War veteran. She graduated from Kansas State College (now University) in 1906. She taught home economics in several small Kansas schools and at Jonesboro College, Jonesboro, Ark. before taking a teaching position in Galveston, TX. This job led to a position as manager of food services for the Texas Gas Co.

She received a masters degree from the University of Chicago in c. 1928, and that year joined the faculty of Iowa State's Division of Home Economics.

Marcia’s mother, widowed in 1905, made her home with her daughter for 33 years, until she died at age 90. Marcia retired from Iowa State in 1945 to a Tennessee farm near the farm home of a brother and his family. Here, at age 62, she began a new career raising beef cattle in partnership with her brother. After his death she continued the enterprise with a niece, who still manages the farm and lives there.

She was the author and co-author of teaching manuals for high school home economics, covering child development, foods and nutrition and textiles and clothing. She also sold free lance articles to trade publications dealing with food and fabrics. At Iowa State she was faculty advisor to the staff of the home economics student magazine ("The Home Economist"?)

Her student brought her their problems—academic, social, or financial. She helped them when she could and her caring interest often made the difference for them between success and failure, a fact acknowledged by former students many times during her entire life. She was also the person to whom members of her family often turned for strength and encouragement. Her religion meant a great deal to her and throughout her life she was involved in the work of her church.

Submitted on 4/8/94