During the Great Depression a farmer and his wife reared six children in Washington County. Little did they realize that three of their daughters would graduate with Home Economics degrees and each would establish an endowment to pay back what others had done for them.

Iris Price Dover

“We were Depression babies. Going to college was a luxury,” according to Iris Price Dover (BSHE ’42). “Marion (Marion Price Elkin, BSHE ’38) respected our home demonstration agent, Ms. Ruby Thompson. As a charter Pringle Community 4-H member, Marion knew she wanted a career with the Extension Service. Daddy only had money for two years of school. Fortunately, Marion was named the national 4-H sewing champion and earned a scholarship. She also taught and saved enough money to attend summer school and finish her degree.”

Mr. Price began a tradition of supporting each child in school for two years. Marion, Virginia Price Turner (BSHE ’39) and Iris all held a common interest in home economics and through hard work, patience and ingenuity, graduated from UGA.

The sisters worked in myriad professions. Marion was a home demonstration agent in Evans and Toombs counties before marriage led her to North Carolina where she was the office manager of her husband’s pickle plant. After retiring as a home economics teacher in Wallace, N.C., she moved to her current home in Tennille, Ga.

Virginia taught disadvantaged farm families everything from family planning to food preservation through her job with the Farm Security Administration. Marriage led her to Washington, D.C., where she retired as the top assistant for Indiana Congressman Ray Madden. In her “retirement” she built a motel near the bay in Ocean City, Md., and renovated the family farm in Pringle. Virginia passed away in 2005.

Iris found her love in early childhood education and retired after many years teaching first grade in Buford, Ga., where she lives today.

Our college has quite a few “sibling groups” of alumni, but the Price sisters are the only ones to each establish endowments to support FACS. Iris says Marion has always been the “leader of the pack” and leads with a generous heart. When she moved from North Carolina to Tennille, Marion donated her home to a local boys’ home charity.

Marion Price Elkin

“It was always in her plan to endow a scholarship,” Iris says. “Earning a scholarship was absolutely crucial to Marion’s graduation. And her graduating showed the rest of her siblings that we, too, could graduate. Scholarships allowed Depression babies to succeed in trying times.”

While Marion gave to pay back, Virginia gave out of the great need she had etched in her memory.

“Virginia worked with the poorest of the poor in her FSA job,” according to Iris.

Because she worked in Oglethorpe County and became invested in its citizens, Virginia asked that the recipient of her endowed scholarship be either a student from Oglethorpe County or her home county of Washington.

Iris, the youngest of the three sisters, established a FACS Study Abroad award in 2004.

“My sisters each established scholarships, but I wanted to do something a little different,” she says. “I love to travel and even though we don’t have Depression babies now, we do have students who need assistance to make this level of education a reality. This was truly my dream come true. I was the ‘little sister’ and I wanted to do as well as my sisters had. Investing in FACS made me feel like I had become an integral part of a Price family tradition. I don’t plan to stop here. I plan to do more!”

The price that the Price sisters paid for their tuition at UGA wasn’t enough. Through their continuing generosity and their estate plans they continue to invest in our institution and our students…maybe even in three sisters!