(Laura) Leone Oyster

Class of 1919: Chemistry Professor

Laura Leone Oyster, known throughout her life as Leone, was born in Ripon, educated at Ripon College, devoted the bulk of her career at the College, and spent her final years in Ripon, committed to her community.

She was born Jan. 30, 1897, in Ripon. At the College, she majored in chemistry and participated in Alpha Gamma Theta and Lyle. After earning a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1920, she returned to Ripon College to serve as an associate professor of chemistry from 1930-1962.

“Oyster is known for teaching excellence and was the first recipient of the Uhrig Foundation’s award for outstanding performance in the classroom. She was also among the first five recipients of a similar award from Ripon’s Harold and May Bumby Severy Fund,” it is recorded in the Ripon Magazine issue commemorating the 150th anniversary of Ripon College.

“A memorial scholarship and prize in Oyster’s honor is given to a chemistry student each year.

“Oyster ‘was cheerful and upbeat, expressed herself well and had a great sense of humor,’ says (the late George Miller, professor emeritus of history). ‘She was known to have especially enjoyed teaching freshmen. She usually found them ‘scared to death of science,’ but looked forward to taking the mystery out of organic chemistry by making a tough subject fun and presenting solid principles students could grasp.

“Oyster was ‘quite an athletic woman,’ active with tennis, swimming, skiing and ice skating much of her life. Yet Oyster ‘was constantly falling and breaking bones’ during activities like tobogganing on Merriman Hill. ‘If the sled went shooting off’ and Oyster was injured, ‘in just a few days she’d be back, on crutches, teaching her classes.’

“Oyster, who walked around town in all kinds of weather and rarely missed a college football or basketball game, was not ready to retire at 65, Ripon’s retirement age at the time. State schools, however, allowed professors to teach until age 70, so Oyster accepted a chemistry appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (‘bird watching and knitting bore me,’ she commented). When she reached her ‘second’ retirement age, Oyster returned to Ripon and resumed her active role in affairs of the College, church and community.”

David Griffiths, Class of 1958, recalled: “She was my instructor in both quantitative analysis and organic chemistry. She was an amazing lecturer in that she never used any notes. She would begin lecturing at the start of the class period and keep on going until the end of the period, pausing only occasionally to look heavenward, apparently referring to her ‘notebook in the sky’ before plunging onward at breakneck speed. I really had to hustle in taking notes to keep up with her.

“Miss Oyster inspired me to go on to graduate school in chemistry at Purdue, where I earned my master’s degree in 1961. I taught chemistry for three years at what is now UW-Whitewater (I did refer to notes when lecturing), and then worked for 35 years at Aldrich Chemical Company in Milwaukee. I feel that I owe a lot of my success in my work career to the background which Miss Oyster provided in the basics of chemistry.”

Relatives who also attended Ripon include her brother Dalies Oyster, Class of 1921; a niece, Nancy Oyster, Class of 1958; and a nephew, Thomas J. Oyster, Class of 1962.

Oyster died Feb. 24, 1983, at the age of 86. She received Ripon’s Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1969, and the Medal of Merit posthumously in 1983.