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In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, Madeline Navien Kenney crossed the stage at Emmanuel College to receive her diploma—an achievement that marked not only a personal triumph but a generational shift.
As the descendant of Irish immigrants, none of whom had completed education beyond the eighth grade, Madeline was a determined outlier. College was an unlikely path for a young woman from a working-class family, especially one whose father questioned the need for higher education for women. But Madeline understood something her father had yet to grasp: Education was not just a privilege—it was a catalyst.
“She was driven,” recalled her daughter, Maureen Kenney ’64, one of five siblings who recently established the Madeline Navien Kenney Endowed Scholarship at Emmanuel College in her honor. “She had to convince her father—make a contract with him—just to attend college. He didn’t see the point. He said, ‘Why would a woman go to college when she’ll just get married and raise children?’”
Now, nearly a century after Madeline’s graduation, her legacy lives on through the scholarship designed for students who mirror her journey: first-generation college students and commuters. “We knew she would have loved the idea of supporting someone forging an unexpected path,” said Maureen.
The decision to create the scholarship was a collective one, born out of a shared family conviction about the power of education to change lives. “We saw it happen in our own family,” Maureen said. “My mother’s going to college shifted the culture of the whole extended family—not just my siblings and me. It changed everything.”
A Bargain for Opportunity
Madeline’s chance to attend Emmanuel came with a strict agreement. Her father permitted her to walk the two miles each way to campus—accompanied by her best friend, Catherine Boucher Doe ’32—and live at home rent-free. In exchange, Madeline would work as a salesgirl, cover her own tuition and expenses, and, after graduation, she agreed to repay her father $5 per week for the money he had not collected plus another $5 a week for her current room and board. She honored this commitment and from 1932 to 1936 she worked as a telephone operator. Only after the contract with her father was completed did she marry her fiancé, Frank Kenney.
A Family Transformed by Education
Madeline and Frank raised their five children with an unshakable conviction: Education was nonnegotiable. Dinner was at 6 p.m. sharp. Weeknights were for homework, followed by the ritual 10 p.m. snack of homemade cookies. And then back to the desks to finish all assignments. Starting at 12 age through college, the Kenney children had part-time jobs—babysitting, caddying, landscaping, playground counselors, or working in local businesses.
The discipline paid off. All five Kenney children earned advanced degrees, with the four sons graduating from Yale University. “What she started with that one pledge had ripple effects for generations,” Maureen reflected. As of 2025, 10 relatives of Madeline’s direct descendants are also Yale graduates.
Madeline’s story embodies the quiet determination of women who paved the way for future progress. Born to a father who delivered coal and wood and a mother from a small Irish enclave near the Saint Lawrence River, she attended Emmanuel at a time when college-educated women—especially those of modest means—were rare. Latin and a curriculum based on the literature and history of Western civilization were still required; her classmates were predominantly well-off. Yet she flourished.
“She believed in structure but also in joy,” said Maureen. “She ran the house efficiently but never burdened us with chores. She wanted the four boys to focus 100% on studies and sports in order to excel at both. We were expected to earn our own way forward.”
A Legacy Continued
For Maureen, who struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia as a child, education was a complicated but ultimately profound journey. After transferring to Emmanuel from Framingham State Teachers College, she found herself in an intellectually vibrant community that celebrated curiosity.
“I wasn’t even going to apply because my mother went there,” she admitted with a laugh. “But it turned out to be exactly where I needed to be.”
Her years at Emmanuel in the early 1960s were transformative. “The city was my classroom,” she recalled. “I’d visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, attend concerts at the MFA, catch baseball games at Fenway, and walk to Harvard for Catholic Club events. It opened my mind to so much more than what I’d known growing up in the suburbs.”
That curiosity propelled her into an international career—teaching in Brussels, traveling across Europe, and later raising three children as a single mother in New York City while building a career in arts education. Eventually, she became Director of Arts Education for Manhattan’s 41 high schools, securing an Annenberg grant to bring arts professionals to partner with teachers in the public schools.
Throughout it all, Emmanuel remained a touchstone—an institution that nurtured not just intellect but the whole person. “That orientation to service was central,” she said. “And I see that same spirit in our new Pope Leo XIV—intelligent, compassionate, grounded in justice.”
The scholarship in her mother’s name, she hopes, will embody that spirit, offering students who don’t fit traditional narratives of success both the resources and the encouragement to thrive.
“Emmanuel gave my mother a beginning, and she never forgot it,” said Maureen. “Even my grandfather changed: in 1964 he paid my final semester’s tuition at Emmanuel in acknowledgment of the impact of education on his own grandchildren.
“We hope this scholarship gives another student that same kind of beginning—one that changes everything.”
