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Madelon Louisa Stockwell (Turner) (August 9, 1845-1924) was the first woman allowed to enter and graduate from the University of Michigan.

Family and Upbringing
Born on August 9, 1845 to parents Louisa Peabody (1819-1904) and Charles F. Stockwell (1817-1850), Madelon spent her early childhood in Albion, Michigan. Her grandparents, Eleanor and Tenney Thompson Peabody, had arrived in 1833 as some of the first white settlers in Albion, then called “The Forks.”

When Madelon was five, her father passed away after being infected with a tropical disease while en route to joining the California gold rush. Two years later, Madelon's mother married Dr. W. H. Johnson. Madelon’s diary, A Michigan Childhood: the Journals of Madelon Louisa Stockwell, 1856-1860, recounts her early years:

“Even of my very early years, memory, all cobwebbed and rubbish-encumbered as it is, does not reveal a time when I did not long to attend at some time our state university.”

Education
Madelon graduated from Albion College in 1862 as an advanced student. During the 1860s the family moved to Kalamazoo.

Madelon’s parents supported her ambitions and learning. Her father wrote to her mother before his ill-starred departure to California, “Often show Maddy my picture, and tell her how much her father loves her, carried her on his shoulder and trotted her on his knee. Don’t let others dominate over her & reasonably gratify her wishes.”

Her interest in classical languages began early. Her mother knew Latin, and occasionally corrected her daughter’s work:

"This evening, as I had my Xenophon for tomorrow & Caesar was very easy being review, I corrected my composition or, rather, Ma did the most of it."

Although she excelled in these subjects, she found them challenging and worked hard to understand ancient texts:

“This eve I have been studying Greek prose. We are in the moods now & it is real hard.”

Stockwell was accepted into the university on February 2, 1870.

She was the only woman on a campus of some 1,100 male students. Her entrance exam was longer and more demanding than that given to men. As she recalled,

“My examinations in the various authors with whom an acquaintance was required were longer and more severe than those given the young men. Whether this was because the professor wished to escape the charge of partiality, and so leaned too far the other way, or whether it was from curiosity to see what I knew, I cannot tell. Among other passages in Livy I had the celebrated crossing of the Alps and the destruction of the Titans, and the soliloquy beginning with, 'O divine ether,' in 'Prometheus Bound,' which is in itself a senior study, but I had read it the year before. The professors were kind enough, but they were severe.”

Upon passing this exam, she was accepted and began her sophomore year as a classical studies major. She was especially fond of Ancient Greek and was at the top of her class.

She graduated with her B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1872.

Marriage
Madelon married a fellow student at the University of Michigan: Charles King Turner. In 1879 they moved to California in search of clean air to combat Turner’s tuberculosis. A year later, Turner passed away. After his death, Madelon returned to Kalamazoo. Over the final two decades of her life, she gradually retreated from society, residing in only two rooms out of the eighteen-room house she owned. In 1924, she passed away in that same residence.

In 1909, she had informed President Dickie of Albion College that she intended to leave a substantial donation to the institution. Albion College ultimately received a generous sum of over $330,000, which funded the construction of the Charles F. and Louisa Peabody Memorial Library.

Influence
Madelon’s impact on gender equity at the University of Michigan was significant. Although she was the only woman enrolled during her first year, thirty-three women enrolled the following September.

While Madelon Louisa Stockwell (Turner) recognized that her studies of the Latin roots of Romance languages might “seem somewhat dusty” to others, she revealed her motivations in a letter to her classmates.

“Any pursuit whatsoever, that is really worthwhile, and that takes hold of the eternal verities, adds to the sum of personal knowledge and enjoyment – though gradually, as the dew gathers, drop by drop, in the heart of a rose.”

Death
Having inherited a fortune from her stepfather, the physician and pharmacist Dr. William Johnson, who had helped raise Madelon after her father had passed away. He left his eighteen-bedroom brick home to Madelon and her mother in his will. In Madelon’s final years, she was socially reclusive and continued to dedicate herself to language learning, studying Italian, Spanish, French, and Hebrew. She died alone after years of retreating from society and an increasingly private profile. Her death made headlines because of her trailblazing role as the first woman accepted to the University of Michigan and because she was believed to be the richest woman in Kalamazoo.

Legacy
Charles F. and Louisa Peabody Memorial Library now serves as a repository for various personal belongings belonging to Madelon Stockwell Turner, as she had requested in her will.

Stockwell Hall is a historically all-female residential hall at the University of Michigan which was named in honor of Madelon Stockwell Turner. It was completed in 1940 and became co-educational in 2009.