Earth, Air, Fire, Water

Jill Ker Conway was born Jill Kathryn Ker in Hillston, New South Wales, Australia on October 9, 1934. She received a history degree from the University of Sydney in 1958 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. She took a teaching post at the University of Toronto. She became a dean in 1971 and a vice president in 1973. In 1975, she became the first woman to be named president of Smith College. She left Smith in 1985 to become a writer.

She wrote three memoirs entitled The Road from Coorain, True North, and A Woman's Education. In 2002, the PBS program Masterpiece Theater used The Road from Coorain as the basis for a film. She also wrote When Memory Speaks: Reflections on Autobiography. She edited several books including Written by Herself: Autobiographies of American Women and In Her Own Words: Women's Memoirs from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. In 2013, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal. She died on June 1, 2018 at the age of 83.

030