Julia Josephine (Thomas) Irvine, the daughter of Owen Thomas and
Mary Frame (Myers) Thomas, was born at Salem, Ohio, November 9,
1848. Her grandparents, strong abolitionists, are said to have
moved to the middle west from the south because they became
unwilling to live in a slave state. Mrs. Irvine's mother was the
first woman physician west of the Alleghenies, and her mother's
sister also studied medicine. Mrs. Irvine's student life began at
Antioch College, Ohio, but later she entered Cornell University,
receiving her bachelor's degree in 1875. In the same rear she
was married to Charles James Irvine. In 1876, Cornell gave her
the degree of Master of Arts. After her husband's death in 1886,
Mrs. Irvine entered upon her career as a teacher, and in 1890 came
to Wellesley, where her success in the classroom was immediate.
Students of those days will never forget the vitality of her
teaching, the enthusiasm for study which pervaded her classes.
Wellesley has had her share of inspiring teachers, and among these
Mrs. Irvine was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant.

The new president assumed her office reluctantly, and with the
understanding that she should be allowed to retire after a brief
term of years, when "the exigencies which suggested her appointment
had ceased to exist." She knew the college, and she knew herself.
With certain aspects of the Wellesley life she could never be
entirely in accord. She was a Hicksite Quaker. The Wellesley
of the decade 1890-1900 had moved a long way from the evangelical
revivalism which had been Mr. Durant's idea of religion, but it was
not until 1912 that the Quaker students first began to hold their
weekly meetings in the Observatory. About this time also, through
the kind offices of the Wellesley College Christian Association,