She Took 59 Years to Finish : At 82, Katherine Chamlis Will Finally Receive a College Diploma in May

By MICHAEL ARKUSH

Jan. 31, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Her first chance came at the worst time, when the United States faced famine at home and fascism abroad. Instead of starting a college education, she started a family. Instead of sitting in classes, she stood in bread lines.

“There was this little thing called the Great Depression,” said Katherine Chamlis, 82, Gardena High School Class of 1932 and Cal State Northridge Class of 1991.

She’s a senior citizen and a co-ed. In four months, she will graduate, fulfilling a lifetime goal that took, well, a lifetime. She’s an English major at CSUN who dreams of publishing her writing. Nobody says no to her anymore.

“I’m going to sit down and try to write,” said Chamlis, who CSUN officials believe is the university’s oldest student currently enrolled. “I have a lot to tell.”

She begins with her struggle to finish high school. Held back to take care of a younger sister, Chamlis wasn’t a senior till 1928. She got married, and pregnant, and couldn’t actually graduate till 1932, at age 23.

Then, while her husband was hunting for work, she searched for food. Her family occupied a small house--”more like a chicken coop”--in San Fernando. She had to take care of two children, her father, a few cousins.

In 1936, she got a divorce and moved to Hermosa Beach. Things didn’t get easier. She took jobs as a waitress, then as a housekeeper, walking miles to work. “I felt desperate,” Chamlis said. “I didn’t have any skills. I didn’t have a bank account. All I could think of was how I had to feed my children.”

In 1941, she found work as a clerk at an Altadena drug store and then, later in the decade, she was employed at a defense plant in Monrovia. Finally, in the 1960s, she bought a coffee shop in Pasadena, which she ran till she sold it in 1970. “And the lady I sold it to still owes me a few thousand dollars.”

Throughout her many occupation shifts, she never totally abandoned her dreams of higher education. In the late ‘40s, she tried Pasadena City College and “they told me I was too old.” She was in her 40s. “And they told me they couldn’t find my transcripts. I had changed schools 28 times.” Chamlis admits now that she quit at the first hint of rejection at PCC and probably didn’t talk to the proper authorities.

She wasn’t angry, “just hurt,” she said. “And then I waited another 40 years.”

In 1981, she signed up for a writing course at Antelope Valley College, and she’s been taking classes ever since. In 1985, she transferred to CSUN. She takes two classes a semester, maintaining a manageable workload. Last semester, she took courses Tuesdays and Thursdays, arriving on campus at 8:30 a.m. and staying till early evening. In between her classes, she hung out in the cafeteria.

“If I were her, I wouldn’t have done it,” said Rima Tannous, 22, a CSUN senior of a different sort, one of Chamlis’ many young admirers. “She’s been through so much and never gave up.”

This semester, Chamlis is taking geography and narrative writing. She receives financial aid, and only has to pay a small fee for her education. Any cost is worth it.

“I knew there were things I didn’t know, but I didn’t realize it was so much,” she said.

Chamlis also sees substantial differences between the youth of her generation and the present one. “The kids are much nicer, much more considerate than when I was a kid,” she said. “When I was a kid, they were brats. If you didn’t live on the right avenue and have the clothes, they looked down on you.”

She has ambitious plans for her post-graduation years. She loves writing fiction and has also thought about chronicling her life. “I’ve been told by a teacher it’s publishable material.”

And the ending hasn’t been written yet.