Catherine Trost Blackett was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at Macalester College in 1980. Exactly 35 years later, her son James Blackett, was inducted into ΦBK at Occidental College, May 2015. Both graduated summa cum laude with BAs in Economics from liberal arts colleges.
Catherine writes: “The icing on the cake is Jim’s great-grandfather (on my husband’s side) was also ΦBK. Olin W. Blackett graduated in 1917 from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, also with a BA in Economics. In the photo, Jim is holding his great-grandfather’s ΦBK key. Olin Blackett went on to earn his PhD from Harvard University where he later also taught. After Harvard, Olin was a professor in the business school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Olin taught business statistics there for 30 years before retiring in 1960.”