Routt, Mary Patterson, 1888-1986

Biography / Administrative History

Mary Patterson Routt was a founding trustee of Scripps College as well as one of the first female members of the White House press corps. She was born on May 13, 1888 in Mitchellville, Iowa, a small farming community. The only child of Burton Robert Patterson, a grain broker, and his wife, Ida Patterson, it was always understood that she was expected to attend college; as a child, her mother had sent in an application for her to attend Wellesley College in Boston. Because the local high school she attended was unaccredited, after graduating, Mary enrolled in a preparatory high school in Grinnell, Iowa. Having made many close friends there, Mary persuaded her parents to allow her to stay and enroll in Grinnell College. Her parents relented only after she promised to attend Wellesley College after graduating from Grinnell; her father felt that her education should not be limited geographically to the Midwestern area. Thus, after graduating from Grinnell in 1908 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, Mary earned a bachelor's degree in English and history from Wellesley. After graduating from Wellesley, Mary taught at Sutherland High School in Iowa for a year. In 1912 she married Orville Routt, whom she had met at Grinnell College. After the two married, the couple moved to Southern California where her husband became the owner of a successful lumberyard business. In 1920, Mary gave birth to their only child, Robert.

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