Last November, 90-year-old Arden Eversmeyer ’51 traveled to the TWU Denton campus from her home in Houston to meet graduate student Anissa DeLeon, the first recipient of the Arden Eversmeyer Scholarship Endowment in Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies. Eversmeyer endowed the scholarship for one continuing doctoral student in the Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies program.

The daughter of a schoolteacher, Eversmeyer spent 30 years teaching health and physical education and working as a counselor in the Texas public school system. “My parents were both bright people and valued education,” she says. Initially, her father had to talk her into attending college, but once she arrived at what was formerly known as the Texas State College for Women, she was “delighted” to be there. It was where she learned to become independent, and figured out “who I really was,” she says.

For that reason, another highlight of Eversmeyer’s campus visit was getting to meet with PRIDE, the campus LGBTQIA organization. “It is so great that this student group exists today,” she said. “I am so pleased that so much has changed.”

 

"TODAY, EVERSMEYER IS PROUD TO LIVE IN A TIME WHEN SHE CAN BE HER TRUE SELF"

Terra Costa Howard, Illinois State representative and friend of Eversmeyer

 

SAVING LIFE STORIES

Eversmeyer is the founder of Lesbians Over Age Fifty (LOAF), a social organization, and the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP). Over the past 25 years, OLOHP has recorded oral histories from nearly 800 women across the country and some globally, and collected them into two books. She was also a mayoral appointee to the Houston Agency on Aging.

Eversmeyer is proud of her life’s work. The support she has provided to TWU is greatly appreciated and will go on to provide needed aid to future TWU students.