A teen dropped out of high school during WWII. Now 99, she just graduated.
Eleanor Monninger was one class short of graduating when her brother went to fight in World War II and her father needed her help running the family farm.
By Jonathan Edwards
Photo-Eleanor Monninger, 99, talks with a Macomb High School senior during their graduation ceremony Saturday in Illinois. Monninger earned her diploma more than 80 years after she left high school in 1942. (Andrea Ratermann)
Eleanor Monninger was always a little embarrassed about never graduating high school, but on Saturday, the 99-year-old faced 3,000 people in the audience — including nearly 150 fellow graduates who were more
than 80 years her junior — as she wore her cap and gown and held her diploma. The crowd rose and roared. “In all my years, I’ve never seen a graduate receive a standing ovation,” said Patrick Twomey,
superintendent of Macomb School District 185 in western Illinois. Macomb High School’s graduation ceremony at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Ill., concluded a chapter of Monninger’s life that had been left unfinished since 1942. That year, her brother went to fight in World War II, leading her father to pull her from high school so she could help on the family farm for what turned out to be three years — the rest of the war. She was one class short from graduating. By the time she was free of feeding chickens and milking cows, she was older than the high school seniors she would be studying alongside. “I didn’t want to go back because I was embarrassed about being around those young kids,” she said, adding that she didn’t think she would have much use for a diploma.
Photo Monninger and two Macomb High School seniors practice ahead of their graduation ceremony. (Andrea Ratermann)
Her boyfriend, Bob Monninger, had returned from the war. The two of them got married in 1945 and had their first child. Two more followed in the next six years. Bob would spend more than four decades as an engineer at a heating plant, first at Western Illinois University and then at Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., while Eleanor raised the children and then spent a decade working in food service at the university.
The years turned to decades, and life’s everyday demands always seemed more urgent than finishing school to get her diploma. Most of the time, she didn’t think about it, but there were instances when it burst into her consciousness. Ahead of what would have been her 50th reunion, an alum called Monninger to get contact information about a fellow graduate but didn’t invite her to attend, she said. That rankled her. Although she didn’t graduate with her classmates, she had studied and socialized with them for four years. And since it had been a half-century since high school, she recalled wondering whether that distinction was still important. “I felt like an outcast,” she said. “Why are they doing this and not inviting me?” But she tried to let it go.
Photo Monninger with two Macomb High School students during their graduation ceremony. (Andrea Ratermann)
Twomey said one of Monninger’s nephews contacted him last year when she was still 98. He said that his aunt always regretted not graduating from high school in 1942 and asked whether he could issue her a diploma. Twomey promised to look for her records and see what he could do.
District officials finally found one record confirming that Monninger had attended what was then known as Western Illinois High School, which had long since closed. But given the graduation requirements, Twomey couldn’t grant her a diploma. During a subsequent conversation, the nephew for the first time mentioned that Monninger had left high school to help on the family farm because her brother was fighting in the war. That changed things. State regulations allowed school officials to award a diploma to students who left high school because of the war effort. Twomey consulted with state Board of Education officials, who told him he had the discretion to decide whether to give her a diploma. “I said, ‘Great, because my discretion is we’re going to issue her one,’” Twomey recalled saying.
Monninger said it was nice to finally graduate. Twomey gave her the honors of standing in front of more than 140 fellow graduates and leading them as they flipped their tassel from one side of their mortarboards to the other.
Her youngest son, Andy, said he was in the audience watching with a big smile on his face and a few tears rolling down his cheeks — tears of joy. While she was onstage, Monninger hinted that her high school diploma might not be the end of her academic career, Twomey said. “At the end, Eleanor said, ‘I’m only 99. I may go ahead and take some college courses now.’ ”
Photo Monninger gets ready to flip her tassel, signaling her graduation more than 80 years after she left high school during World War II. (Andrea Ratermann)
That was just a joke, she said. Even though Illinois State is near her apartment, she’ll probably stick to the ballroom dance sessions she attends two to three times a week at the senior center. Her pride about graduating wasn’t a joke. On Monday, she already had her diploma prominently displayed in her apartment. “I have it opened up on the table right here beside me,” she said. “Now I can sit it out and show it.”