Frances Linfield

Frances Ross Linfield was an American educator, social activist and philanthropist. In 1922, she made a gift to McMinnville College worth $250,000, prompting the school to change its name to Linfield College, in honor of her late husband, the Rev. George Fisher Linfield.

Frances Eleanor Ross was born in Penfield, New York, January 4, 1852. She was the daughter of Oliver Chapin and Betsey (Shearman) Ross. Her paternal ancestry traces back to William and Hannah (Hungerford) Ross who came from Barbados in 1678 to settle at Westerly, Rhode Island. Her earliest maternal ancestors in America were Philip and Sarah (Oddings) Shearman who came from Dedham, Essex, England in 1634 to settle in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Frances Ross graduated from Elmira College in Elmira, New York in 1873 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts; a half-century later, her alma mater conferred upon her the Master of Arts degree. Her first teaching position was the high school in Englewood, Illinois, now a part of Chigago. In 1876, she became a teacher of English and Latin in the Pennsylvania State Normal School at Mansfield (now Mansfield University of Pennsylvania). From 1877 to 1878, Miss Ross served as preceptress at the Delaware Literary Institute at Franklin, New York, where she taught English and French. In 1884, she became teacher of German, history and literature at Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where her husband served as the principal until his death in 1890. Mrs. Linfield left Wayland Academy in 1894 to continue her postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago.

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