She is the person most associated with the beginnings of the fledgling college, established in 1916 at the old Sacramento High School at 18th and K streets. Some Sacramentans may recognize Belle Cooledge's name as gracing a local library or perhaps may know that she served as the city's first female mayor in 1947.

But, in fact, Sacramento City College owes its early survival and existence to Belle Cooledge, a woman who dedicated 31 years of her life and career to its staff and students.

Just two years after it opened, the college closed in 1918 because many of its students left to serve in World War I. Cooledge, who was teaching math for both the high school and the college, took a year's leave to train and serve as one of 60 stateside Army nurses. She recalled that she was at first disappointed when the Armistice was declared because she did not get to go overseas.

"We changed our tune when we saw those returning who had been in the trenches," she told The Sacramento Bee in 1936.

"For nearly a year I remained in the service, working in the hospitals where returning soldiers who needed further treatment were cared for," she said.

When she returned home, she reopened the college in 1920 as its dean and only college administrator. According to James Evans, who wrote an early history of SJC, Cooledge planned the curriculum, chose the faculty, ordered equipment and provided guidance for social functions.

When the school year began, equipment had not arrived because of a railroad strike. But Cooledge's "show of patience became contagious with the students as a form of school spirit," Evans said.

Indeed, in The Pioneer, the SJC yearbook, of 1923, the students wrote: "The name of Miss Belle Cooledge will long remain in the hearts of the students of the Sacramento Junior College on account of her untiring efforts, her good nature, and her lovable personality. In order to show our appreciation for one who has done so much for the college, we affectionately dedicate this first edition of the Pioneer to Miss Cooledge, our dean."

The college's first president, Jeremiah B. Lillard, was hired in 1923 to lead the institution and make its move to a permanent site on Freeport Boulevard in 1926. According to Lloyd Bruno, a 1924 SJC graduate who returned to teach English and serve as a dean, Lillard built the college into one of the half-dozen leading institutions of its kind in California.

"However, I often heard Jerry say that 'Aunty Belle,' as we used to call her, took many of the burdens of running the college from off his back, leaving him free to go out into the community and sell the community college idea," Bruno wrote in 1983.

"For Miss Cooledge's duties did not end with looking after the welfare of women students, although, to be sure, that was her primary responsibility. She was also responsible for maintenance of buildings and grounds, the assignment of classrooms and offices to instructors, and the budget. She dispensed student loans from a cigar box she kept in her desk, replenishing it with contributions from the PTA, the patrons' association, and her own money."

When she retired in 1947, Cooledge ran for the Sacramento City Council because many of her former students urged her to. When she garnered more votes than any other candidate that November, she automatically became mayor.

"Most of my support came from men," she told The Sacramento Bee in September 1948. "And a great deal of it came from my former students, both men and women. One of my former men students, an attorney now, told me, 'All of the men supported you-and half the women.' "

She served as mayor for two years and as a council member for two more. She was named Sacramento's Woman of the Year in 1953. Cooledge, who never married or had children, died in 1955 at age 71.

She happily devoted her life to public service, according to many who knew her.

As she said after she lost her third race for city council in 1951, "I'm not sad. After all, it's not a life and death matter. Somebody had to give, and I'm the one. It was an exciting and interesting experience."

• Our board
  
• Our mission
  
• Our staff
  
  

• How do I sponsor a scholarship?
  
• How do I endow a scholarship?