| Notes |
- Bernice Effie Hall was born to George Washington Hall and Effie Sweet, of Atkinson Maine. The eldest of eight children (one died in infancy), Bernice was a scholar and graduated at the top of her high school class. Given the family's limited finances, however, only the boys were encouraged to attend college, an attitude that was typical of the time. Nonetheless, Bernice never lost her love of learning and desire to obtain a formal education, and at age 76 became the (then) oldest person ever to graduate from San Diego State College with a Bachelor's degree.
Bernice worked to help support her family, retiring finally after many years at the U.S. Naval Air Station at North Island. Sharing with her husband, Robert, a high regard for the importance of education, she lived to see her son, Robert Jr., graduate from Yale University under an ROTC scholarship and her grandson, Robert Charles, graduate from college, as she herself eventually did. The early loss to a plane crash of her beloved brother, Linwood, a pioneering aviator and young man of very great promise, deeply grieved Bernice, and to the end of her life she held her family as close as she possibly could.
Bernice's mother Effie, who was raised by John Calvin and Mary Sweet, was actually born to Ella Baxter, daughter of John Baxter and Sally Jane Bragdon. Ella died very young and Effie was cared for initially by Ella's sister, Hattie Baxter, a nurse by vocation. Hattie later brought her to the Sweets, paying for young Effie's room and board. Eventually Effie took the Sweet name but later discarded it for the name of her biological mother, Baxter.
-- Robert C Kuberek, on FindaGrave
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1895 - 1980 (84 years)
