105-year-old woman receives master's degree from Stanford after

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This is a heartwarming story if I ever saw one. A 105-year-old woman has just received her graduate degree from Stanford 83 years after leaving school at the outbreak of World War II.

Virginia “Ginger” Hislop was about to turn in her final thesis at what is now the Stanford Graduate School of Education back in 1941 when her boyfriend, George, got called up to serve in World War II.

At the time, Ginger found marriage a bit more important than her education, so she skipped town before submitting that final thesis, a requirement for the program at the time, and got hitched to George.

‘I thought it was one of the things I could pick up along the way if I needed it and I always enjoyed studying, so that wasn’t really a great concern to me — and getting married was,’ said Hislop, who was born in Palo Alto and resides in Yakima, Washington.

Ginger was soon the mother of two children, and the master’s degree remained on the backburner for what became 83 years. During that time she’s served her local school board in Washington State, which she even chaired for a time. She was the founding member of the board of directors at Yakima Community College, and she served on the board for 20 years at Heritage University.

And now, 83 years after ditching Stanford, she’s finally received that Master of Arts in Education degree.

‘A fierce advocate for equity and the opportunity to learn … today we are proud to confer the master of arts in education to our 105 year-old graduate,’ GSE Dean Daniel Schwartz said in a speech at the beginning of the GSE’s commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 16.