In the span of 120 years, the “College on the Hill” has transformed from South Dakota Agricultural College with 11 Bachelor of Science graduates to South Dakota State University with an enrollment of 11,505 and more than 1,600 graduates this past May.
Maud Agnes Bushnell graduated in 1904 with a degree in English and art. She was one of 11 to earn her Bachelor of Science degree and one of two women. Sophie Hogan ’24 graduated May 4 with a degree in history and a minor in museum studies. Bushnell is Hogan’s great-great-grandmother. For each generation between, there was a direct female descendant graduating from what would become South Dakota State College and then university.
That makes Hogan the fifth generation within the family to have graduated from State.
Hogan, of Brookings, said it is special to continue the tradition that also includes her mother, Kate (Williams) Hogan ’92; her grandmother, Elizabeth “Liz” (Evenson) Williams ’62; and her great-grandmother, Eleanor Florence (Kelton) Evenson ’30/M.S. ’32.
Sophie Hogan also has a grandmother on her paternal side who is an SDSU graduate. Joan (Ford) Hogan earned a bachelor’s degree in 1994 and a master’s in 1999.
Sophie Hogan’s SDSU connections don’t end there. Her paternal grandfather, Ed Hogan, was a geography professor and associate vice president for academic affairs from 1967 to retirement in 2003. Her maternal grandfather, Louis Williams, was a professor in the English department from 1965 to retirement in 2006.
Boxes of family history discovered
The preceding generation also was full of Jackrabbits ties. Her great-grandfather, Albert “Duane” Evenson, received degrees in 1930 and 1932 and then taught in the printing and journalism department until retirement in 1973.
Duane Evenson’s wife, Eleanor, earned a bachelor’s degree in 1930 and a master’s in 1932 and then started teaching at State College. However, she “had to stop due to a rule enacted during the Depression that the university would only allow one spouse to work to allow more families to have an income,” according to family historian Tim Hogan, who is Sophie’s father.
Ed Hogan had compiled a thorough genealogical history of the Hogan family. In 2019, Tim Hogan started researching on his wife’s side.
In addition to standard sources like birth and death records and yearbooks, Hogan had boxes of archival information that his mother-in-law, Liz Williams, had accumulated.
Kate Hogan, her daughter, said, “She had so many boxes of stuff she had planned to get to but died before she had the chance. The boxes finally found their way to our house when we cleaned out my dad’s (Lou’s) condo in 2015.”
Research introduces descendants to ancestors
Louis Williams died in 2019. That also was when Tim Hogan had a surgery that kept him out of work for a while. He invested his time in genealogy.
He did find some gems, such as Maud (Bushnell) Kelton’s report cards and her 1904 graduation program, Duane Evenson’s State College contract for 1946-47 ($2,800) and a permission note from State College President C.W. Pugsley to Albert D. Evenson of the Department of Printing and Rural Journalism.
The note, dated Dec. 2, 1931, stated, “We have considered your request of October 29 and see no reason why you and Miss Kelton may not marry so far as your present status of employment is concerned, since arrangements were made without knowledge of the rules, before their reinstatement as a matter of fact, and since a graduate assistant is not really a member of the permanent college staff.”
Kate and Sophie Hogan were aware of the family’s SDSU connections — Kate has Maud’s 1904 class ring. However, Tim Hogan’s research has, in a sense, brought ancestors back to life.
“It’s been very nice to get to know these women who lived long before my time. I’m very happy that my graduation continues a piece of family history,” Sophie Hogan said.
It’s a piece of history that almost didn’t come together. After high school, Sophie Hogan attended the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Struggles created by the isolation associated with COVID procedures caused her to look elsewhere for her final year. Heading back home seemed like the best option. So she enrolled in 2022 and went to school part time and worked part time.
For a fifth-generation graduate and a history major, she found the ideal positions — serving as a part-time associate director of the Moody County Museum and maintaining an internship at the Briggs Library archives.
Dave Graves
