Evelyn Hurwicz (née Jensen)

Evelyn was born on a farm near Almena, Wisconsin, on October 31, 1923, to Arthur* and Hazel Jensen.

In her junior year of high school (1940) at West Allis Central High School, she was a member of the “Forum Club,” probably organized for discussions of public affairs, as well as the “Forensic” club, probably organized for competitive speech and drama.

In her senior year, she was a “February Valedictorian”; she was on student council; and she won a Latin award and a Forensic award.

Below: Evelyn’s senior year awards, from her high school yearbook, “Wamago,” 1941

She wanted to be a teacher, and, after high school, attended the Milwaukee State Teachers College and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The family story is that one of her teachers, impressed with her intelligence, submitted her as a scholarship candidate to the University of Chicago. She was awarded a scholarship and was majoring in economics in 1943, when Leo hired her, sight unseen, as an assistant. He was teaching prospective Army and Navy inductees the statistics, mathematics and physics needed to analyze weather data generated by the newly-invented radar.

They were married on July 19, 1944.

Below is a picture of them just a few days later, on July 23, 1944, at the Hotel Bismarck in Chicago. (They’re the ones who are totally in love and can’t stop looking at each other.) The picture below that shows them a few years later, in 1946.

They had four children: Sarah (born December 7, 1946), Michael (January 18, 1949), Ruth (May 25, 1951) and Maxim (September 5, 1953).

Evelyn died on November 22, 2016, at 5:24 pm, at Grace Pointe Commons in Cambridge, Minnesota.

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* The 1930 census shows his name as John A. Jensen, the 1940 census as John Jensen. But Evelyn told me his name was Arthur, and I’m assuming that’s what he went by.