Plenty of students at University of Illinois have legacies, but this LAS graduate's family history extends to before the campus was built. "I like to tell people I'm a sixth generation Illini," says Angela Schriver (BS '03, psychology) with pride. In 1864, her great-great-great-grandfather Graham Lee was the vice president of the State Board of Agriculture, the organization that helped establish U of I. From Graham's ties to the University, a family tradition grew with the school, and Graham's eldest son, Elisha, graduating in 1879. Each of Elisha's eight children attended U of I and from each subsequent generation at least one of Angela's ancestors has called him or herself an Illini.
Angela decided to attend U of I knowing that her father, aunt, and uncle were alumni, but otherwise unaware of how far back the family history stretched. It wasn't until her high school graduation when her aunt showed her a gold ring that her grandmother had received upon completing her degree in 1915 that she began to find out about a whole slew of relatives who had walked on the Quad and cheered on Illini.
Hailing the orange and blue was natural in Angela's house; whenever a U of I game was on TV she and her siblings would call her grandparents and sing the alma mater to them. Her grandparents, though not alums, nevertheless feel ties to Illinois, and thanks to their children, they have patches of Memorial Stadium growing in their backyard. In 1975, when the University changed the field from grass to astro turf, students were allowed to take small squares of the old sod. Angela's father and his siblings took their squares home and planted them.
Angela, while not taking any of the landscaping home with her, left U of I knowing that, judging from history, the odds are good that someday another descendent of Graham Lee will sing the alma mater and stroll the sunlit Quad.
