Wallace, Ilo Browne, 1888-1981

Born in Indianola, Iowa, she was the daughter of James Lytle Browne and his wife, the former Harriet Lindsay.

She attended Simpson College before transferring to study voice at Drake University.

She married Henry Agard Wallace in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 20, 1914. They had three children: Henry Browne Wallace (1915–2005), Robert Browne Wallace (1918–2002), and Jean Browne Wallace (1920–2011). Her husband later became the editor-in-chief of Wallace's Farmer, an influential Midwestern farming magazine that had been founded by his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace, a future U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

A small inheritance she received from her parents enabled the Wallaces and their business partners to establish, in 1926, the Hi-Bred Corn Company, which developed and distributed hybrid maize and eventually transformed agriculture. The company is now known as Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's second largest seed company.

On February 22, 1981, she died at the Wallace estate, Farvue Farm, in South Salem, New York. Her funeral was private at her family's request.