Bess Wolf '30, Arkansas College graduate and longtime friend of Lyon College, celebrated her 100^th birthday June 16 with a reception to visit with friends and family.

Wolf was born in Esto, Fla., to John and Mattie Millen. She was third of five daughters. The family moved to Malvern, where she attended school and graduated as the valedictorian of her class. She was offered five scholarships. She made her choice by which college had a pipe organ, so she packed a trunk, dressed in her Sunday best, and boarded a train to come to Batesville to attend Arkansas College (now Lyon). She graduated from the college as valedictorian in 1930.

Bess married John Quincy Wolf Jr. in the fall of 1931 in the Presbyterian church two houses down from the Wolf home. The couple spent the next 41 years together reaching for and teaching higher education, sharing a love of music with the world, and learning life's lessons. They had two daughters, Adele Grilli and Florence Calaway.

From the time Wolf was little she taught herself how to play instruments and sing, and later, she and husband Quincy earned nationwide if not worldwide attention for collecting and publishing folk songs and most likely saving them from extinction.

At age 50, she went back to school at the University of Memphis to get a master's degree in psychology. She and Quincy enjoyed the works of William Wordsworth, so her thesis was on Wordsworth's philosophy that children could learn more from nature. It was published in educational journals.

Bess traveled through four states as an admissions counselor at Rhodes College, and retired at 65.

Quincy, who had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, died in 1972. Bess stayed in Memphis long enough to finish editing his book, "Life in the Leatherwoods," then moved back to Batesville.

Even though she was offered a great deal of money, she turned it down to donate the hundreds of folk recordings she and her husband had made to Lyon College where he had taught.

In addition to her daughters, Wolf also has two sons-in-law, Guido and Bill; three grandchildren, John Grilli and his wife, Kristin, Samantha Long and Florence Mullins and her husband, Wayne; and two great-grandchildren, Matt Mullins and Madelynn Grilli.