It’s Au Revoir, Not Goodbye

Before dying in May at 104, Elizabeth “Elise” Stammelbach Welfling ’33 may have been our oldest living graduate.

“To attend Swarthmore during the Depression years was a nancial challenge, but she was encouraged by her mother’s strong commitment to higher education for women,” says daughter Elizabeth Welfling King ’63. “Swarthmore taught her how to think, and its Quaker values helped make her who she was.”

Along with husband Weldon Welfling ’33 (who died in 1978), this French major took pride in her alma mater.

“Elise has a twinkle in her eyes that just doesn’t go with lots of studying, yet she is an honors student with a grand record,” wrote the editors of the 1933 Halcyon. “Elise is all contradictions— pleasant, surprising ones—and they make her the best company in the world.”