Log Cabin Scholars

The spry Detroit public-school teacher who stepped up one day last week to receive her master's degree at Detroit's Wayne University was well up in her 60s ; she had been studying for the degree evenings and surnmers for 15 years.

In the audience, applauding as loudly as if academic degrees were something new in the family, stood Mary Myrtle Moulton's seven brothers, including 1) Harold G. Moulton, 61, Ph.D., eight times LL.D., author of a dozen-odd books on economics and finance, president of the Brookings Institution in Washington; 2) Forest Ray Moulton, 73, Ph.D., LL.D., twice Sc.D., secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; 3) Elton J. Moulton, 57, M.A., Ph.D., onetime dean of the graduate school and now head of the mathematics department at Northwestern University; 4) Earl L. Moulton, 66, onetime public-school teacher and now president of two companies; and 5) Vernon V. Moulton, president of an insurance company and a trustee of Albion College.

All eight Moultons were born and raised in a 15-ft.-square log cabin that Father Belah Moulton built on a homesteaded tract near Reed City, Mich, after returning from the Civil War. Despite their poverty, Mother Mary Moulton, who had been a country school teacher, insisted that every last one of the children get an education. Every one of them did. But Sister Mary, after years of country school-teaching, did not get her A.B. until 15 years ago.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.